


Feet Ready, Heartbeat Steady

by kiwigirl



Series: Speak Now (the Words on My Skin) [4]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, BAMF Darcy Lewis, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes Recovering, F/M, Pre-HYDRA Reveal, Red Room (Marvel), Red Room!Darcy Lewis, Songfic, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-01
Updated: 2017-07-12
Packaged: 2018-08-18 19:31:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 30,500
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8173223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kiwigirl/pseuds/kiwigirl
Summary: Darcy Lewis, aged 24, born and raised in Pennsylvania, and no one at the Tower knows anything to the contrary. Yet.But Darcy meets her soulmate, and that's when things get messy. Because when you've got a past like Darcy, there will always be secrets coming up to haunt you.





	1. Home

**Author's Note:**

> This is a continuation of chapters 41 and 42 of The Beat of Our Hearts. Both of those have been reposted below for easy reading. Thank you to everyone who asked me to continue this!

Following Jane to SI had been a mistake. Her only excuse is that she'd gotten attached to the first real friend she's had in years. She's been ready to run after meeting SHIELD in New Mexico, but as days turned to weeks turned to months and all that arrived was a job offer with Stark, she began to relax. She'd even begin to consider unpacking her bag: the duffel bag with the passports, burner phone, nondescript hoodie and jeans, gun, and enough cash to set up somewhere new. She hadn't, though.  Her latest name change will only ensure her safety for a little while. Someday soon, Darcy Lewis will have to disappear.

Maybe next time, she'll be French. She's always loved Paris.

Still, she hadn't wanted to leave Jane just yet. She'd stayed careful, hiding behind glasses, faking sick when Stark sent the photographers around to avoid a photo on the staff section of the website. All her preparation ruined by a promotional shot from one of Stark’s staff parties. She'd taken it down through what would have appeared to be a juvenile prank hack, but one of her handlers - former handlers - must have seen it, perhaps when gathering intel on Stark.

Not that that’s particularly her problem, at the moment. Her problem resides in the three bodies in Jane’s lab. They sucked at being quiet and none of them had data storage units, so she has to assume they came for her. They must have thought she’d gotten soft.

She hadn’t.

Voices echo from around the corner. If they find her here, they’ll have questions. It’ll draw all the wrong type of attention from the Avengers. There is little chance that the Black Widow living upstairs would recognise her, but Darcy doesn’t want to take that chance.

Darcy darts over to the other door, silently slips out. She’s over in the staff kitchenette three floors down when the alarms start blaring.

Clutching her coffee and faking a yawn, Darcy pokes her head out. “Did Tony blow something up again?” she asks one of the security guys rushing past.

He shakes his head. “No, ma’am, this is something else. Just stay here.”

Rolling her eyes, Darcy pulls out her iPod and sticks in her earbuds, though the music is on low. She curls up on a couch and pretends to read one of the trashy magazines that Leanne leaves lying around. When the all clear is given, she rinses her mug and heads home.

She has to prepare. She might have stopped one attack but she's certain they will try again.

* * *

The Asset reviews the file on his target. She is a former Asset herself, who went off the grid several years ago and has surfaced in the company of Tony Stark. She went through the program several years after Romanova and the analysts could find nothing to indicate the two were in communication, but that must reviewed in light of recent findings.

Expert infiltrator, highly skilled at hand to hand and hacking, above average on the shooting range. Overall, a standard operative. Three teams sent to recapture or neutralise have disappeared, which is to be expected from an Asset.

Security at the Tower has been increased since the first team failed, so he has been ordered to attack her place of residence. She is now considered too dangerous to retrieve.

One shot, problem solved.

* * *

"No, I've got a headache," Darcy lies. "Maybe next weekend?"

"We haven't seen you in ages," Emily complains from the other side of the phone. "Get better soon, ok? Next weekend, I'm holding you to it."

"I'll be there," Darcy promises with conviction she doesn't feel, and ends the call.

This constant vigilance is wearing on her, and ruining her social life. She's made an effort to make new friends only recently and now all her hard work is coming undone. It's probably for the best: friends are distractions at best, collateral damage at worst. At least Jane's safely ensconced at the Tower.

If only she could get one of those apartments in the Tower. Between Stark and Friday, the security there is several lightyears above anywhere else in New York. She wouldn't have to watch her back, sleep with one eye open. Unfortunately, they are reserved for higher priority members of the organisation. Perhaps if she went to the Avengers... no. She's worked too hard to leave her past behind, to build the quiet life she enjoys. Talking to the Avengers, revealing her skill set, will change all of that.

Stuffing her phone back in her jeans, Darcy unlocks her door and steps inside. Some flicker, some instinct, has her hitting the floor as a bullet embeds itself in the door where her head was.

Belly crawling to the bag in her bedroom, she hears the lounge window shatter and the tread of heavy boots on broken glass. Glock in hand, she waits. As the footsteps near, she rolls into the corridor and fires blindly at where she expects his head to be.

She only gets three shots off before the gun is wrenched from her hand. Pulled to her feet, a hand clamps around her throat and squeezes.

" _I won't go back_ ," she gasps, kicking out, and her attacker stumbles back, eyes wide behind his mask. His left arm glints in the light and a part of her is impressed that they sent the Winter Soldier after her.

" _Who told you to say that_?" he asks, and it's her turn to gape, one hand around her poor abused throat.

"No one!"she protests when he moves towards her threateningly. She tugs down her neckline to reveal the words which she is sure are now readable. His gaze locks onto them and for some minutes, their harsh breathing in tandem is the only sound.

"Are you still going to kill me?" she finally asks, her voice a croaky rasp. At his mute head shake, she sighs and lets herself slide down the wall until she is sitting on the ground.

"Come here," she says, patting the ground beside her, and to her surprise, he acquiesces. Darcy allows herself to lean on his shoulder for a bit, but training doesn't let her relax for long. "How long before they send someone else?"

"I don't know," he admits. "I am the final option. I don't fail."

"I've heard that," she says, thinking hard. She has the inkling of an idea that could solve all their problems, if her soulmate can avoid being shot on sight. "How do you feel about the Avengers?"


	2. Heathens

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Please don't make any sudden moves_  
>  You don't know the half of the abuse

"The Avengers?" the Winter Soldier shakes his head. "The Avengers must be avoided. Contact will seriously jeopardise the mission."  

"And what's the mission?" Darcy asks, throat still raw.  

"Eliminate the former Asset," he says, fists clenching and unclenching.  

"I don't think the mission is valid anymore," she says, deliberately keeping her voice light. "At least, I hope not."  

Slowly, he nods. "What do I do if there's no mission?" 

Darcy sighs. "I guess you find a new one. That's what I did."  

He turns to her, his gaze intense behind his mask. "You. You're my mission now."  

Darcy lays a hand on the side of his face. "And you're mine."  

The moment is broken when the Soldier jerks, yanks an earpiece from his ear and crushes it between metal fingers. "We need to leave. Now."  

He stands in one smooth movement and Darcy follows suit. "So, you still against asking the Avengers?"  

He shakes his head. "Former mission parameters are no longer valid. The Avengers are protectors. They will keep you safe."  

"They'll keep you safe too, buddy," Darcy says. "Hopefully."

* * *

Darcy throws some clothes into her duffel bag over some money and her current passport, hides the rest in a secret pocket. The Glock she leaves where the Soldier dropped it. She doesn’t want to give the Avengers a reason to give her bag any more than a cursory examination. 

Before she can second guess herself too much, she calls Jane, gives her a quick rundown of the situation – met her soulmate, fears for her life, can they stay at the Tower? Within five minutes of her hanging up, Pepper Potts calls, invites them to a meeting. She doesn’t even sound surprised, which is probably a testament to the sheer volume of weirdness that surrounds Tony Stark on a regular basis. 

She drives to the Tower as her soulmate keeps a wary eye out from the passenger side. He hasn’t said a word since agreeing to approach the Avengers, and Darcy hasn’t pushed. It’s a relief to drop the chatty façade for once and she needs to time to process and plan. 

They are met in the parking garage by a security team, who put her soulmate through an extensive disarmament. Once the last knife is out, they are led to a meeting room where the Avengers are gathered. Jane's eyes bug out and Thor's jaw goes hard at the bruises forming on Darcy's neck.  

Romanoff's gaze goes straight to her soulmate's metal arm. "Is that who I think it is?" 

The woman who Darcy used to be might have answered more directly, but Darcy Lewis merely shrugs. "Dunno," she answers. “Depends who you think it is. He's my soulmate, though," she adds, pulling her neckline down again as proof. Jane studies her words and nods, slowly.  "And he was sent to capture me, possibly for leverage on Jane."  

The hand in hers tightens in warning, but she's mixed enough truth in with the lie to make it believable.   

Romanoff studies her suspiciously. "There have been several security breaches recently. Could this be connected?" 

Darcy shrugs again and breathes a sigh of relief when Romanoff turns away, frustration written across her face.  

"How do we know he's not here to kill us?" Barton demands. 

Darcy opens her mouth to protest but her soulmate beats her to it.  

"If I was sent to kill you, you'd be dead." 

Captain America sucks in a breath, eyes wide. "Take off your mask," he orders. 

After a moment, the Winter Soldier does so, and Rogers stumbles back, looking as if he's seen a ghost. At his reaction, the rest of the room take up defensive positions. Turning to look at her soulmate’s face for the first time, Darcy finds herself confronted with bright blue eyes and cheekbones that could cut steel. Certainly good looking, but nothing that could fell a supersoldier with looks alone. 

“Bucky?” Rogers asks from behind her, sounding lost and a little angry. 

“Who the hell is Bucky?” 

Dredging through her file on Captain America, Darcy realises her initial description of Rogers may be more accurate than she thought. Only now, he looks like he’s seen a ghost _and_ been slapped. 

"How is that even possible?" Jane asks, peering out from behind Thor. "Didn't he die 70 years ago?" 

Everyone looks to the Soldier, who looks about ready to bolt. Darcy squeezes his hand and his shoulders relax marginally. "They froze me," he answers, and Rogers shivers reflexively. 

Stark, uncharacteristically quiet, perks up. "Cryogenics? What did they use? How did they stabilise you? Is the arm insulated against the cold?" 

This is more complicated than she expected. The plan was to beg sanctuary from the Avengers, not – this, whatever this is. Darcy sways and her soulmate drops her hand to steady her. "Can this wait until tomorrow?" she asks plaintively, leaning into his arms. "Please?" 

Rogers looks mutinous, but nods. For his part, Stark actually looks contrite, which is more than she was expecting. Pepper Potts must be a good influence on him; her old training file had him earmarked as being distinctly amoral. "Fine, fine. We are so talking about this later, though." 

The Soldier gives a terse nod, his eyes still on Darcy, who is starting to feel the exhaustion she is feigning.

* * *

Pepper Potts has already organised a suite for them, for which Darcy is deeply grateful. It’s the floor below Jane and Thor and used to be Bruce Banner’s before he ran off with Betty Ross. She’s pretty sure there are some tight security protocols on the elevator, but she’s hardly complaining. 

Jane kindly offers to fetch some more of Darcy’s things. Darcy remembers the Glock lying in her hallway and carefully declines. 

Once they are alone, Darcy activates Friday’s security protocols. Despite her fatigue, she and soulmate silently check the entire apartment, drawing the blinds to make themselves less of a target and booby-trapping the balcony doors. Remembering Barton’s love of air vents, Darcy booby-traps them too. 

Finally, when both are satisfied the apartment is secure, Darcy seats herself on the bed and pats the coverlet beside her in invitation. He shakes his head, takes a position opposite her. 

“So what do I call you?” she asks, voice still raspy. 

He shrugs. “Bucky is as good a name as any. Are you still Daria?” 

“Darcy, now. Darcy Lewis, born and raised in Pennsylvania, and no one here knows anything to the contrary.” 

Bucky raises his eyebrows. “How long is that going to last?” 

Darcy sighs and lets herself flop backwards in clear violation of every poise and posture lesson she’s ever had. “I am going to think about that tomorrow. How much sleep do you need?” 

“About 3 or 4 hours a night,” he admits grudgingly. 

“Yeah, I need way more than that. And just saying, but I sleep better if no one is moving around my apartment so you can stay up and keep watch or sleep next to me, but choose now.” She doesn’t give him a chance to protest; simply shimmies out of her jeans and under the covers. 

“Lights off, please,” she says, and the room is plunged into darkness. Tired as she is, she doesn’t hear his answer. 

* * *

When she awakens, it’s to an empty bed. Hearing _something_ in the living area, Darcy edges to the doorway. Her soulmate is sitting at the table, scribbling away on a notepad that Bruce must have left behind. As she watches, he tears off the current sheet and shuffles the line of papers in front of him to make room. 

Backing away, Darcy goes to take a shower. When she comes out, the papers are in a neat pile that Bucky is steadfastly ignoring. "There's no food," he notes. 

"There's a common room Jane has let me use in the past," Darcy tells him. "I'm sure we can grab something there. They might even let us eat before starting the interrogation." 

Darcy opens the door to the foyer and freezes. The Black Widow leans next to the elevator, Glock dangling from long fingers. 

“Would you care to explain further?” she asks silkily, and it takes Darcy a moment to realise she’s speaking in Russian. 

_Well, crap._


	3. Eyes Open

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _So here you are, two steps ahead and staying on guard_   
>  _Every lesson forms a new scar_   
>  _They never thought you'd make it this far_

Natasha hadn’t paid much attention to Darcy Lewis beyond her usual background check on anyone and everyone associated with the Avengers. She seemed to be unusually skilled at keeping Dr Foster (and by extension, Thor) well fed and moderately rested, but that had hardly seemed cause for concern.

When she was awoken during a rare night off with the news of an averted kidnapping and potential soulmating, she was more annoyed than intrigued. Recognising the Winter Soldier in the meeting had effectively distracted her from the other unknown in the room; the debacle with Rogers, even more so.

Long after everyone else had gone to bed, something about the incident had nagged at her, enough that she left a note for Clint and had gone to investigate. She borrowed one of Stark’s motorbikes: he only bought the things to one-up Rogers. If he didn’t want them ridden, he shouldn’t leave the keys lying about where anyone could grab them.

Darcy Lewis lived in one of the newer apartment complexes on the outskirts of New York City. The inconvenience of distance was outweighed by the parking available; there was evidence that Darcy regularly used her boss’s assigned parking spot in Manhattan, but as Dr Foster didn’t actually own a car, no one complained.

The apartment’s security was solid, but nothing like the Tower, which Natasha had broken into twice already. The first time had been at Stark’s request, to test the security; the second, to play a prank on Rogers. He blamed Clint for it, which was _hilarious_.

Natasha had picked the lock with ease and stepped inside, still not sure what she was looking for. The bullet hole in the wall was a good start, though. _If they wanted her as leverage, why aim to kill?_ Certain then that something was off, Natasha had then walked through the apartment. A large broken window letting in the cold night air, shattered glass squashed into the carpet. Signs of a struggle in the corridor, a handgun on the floor.

Natasha had studied the Glock carefully. Not one of the Soldier’s weapons of choice, from all accounts, but nothing conclusive yet. Still uncertain, she had backtracked to the bedroom. Gaps in the wardrobe showed where clothes had been taken. A chair heaped with even more clothes sat next to the bed, some spilling over onto the floor. Apart from that, the apartment was both scrupulously tidy and surprisingly sp- _Ah._

The bed was neatly made, not with a fitted sheet as was so common, but with a flat sheet, the corners meticulously pleated to the exacting standards of the Red Room.

 _Discipline in all things,_ they had been told. _In appearance, in conduct, in one_ _’_ _s personal belongings. A girl who could not maintain her things properly was not fit for service ._

In all her years since her training, Natasha had never seen a bed made like that, except her own. Armed with new eyes, smaller details began to make sense. The position of the kitchen knives, no doubt wickedly sharp and perfectly balanced. The arrangement of the furniture. An odd choice of spices on hand and two bowls of sugar.

 _That_ was what had nagged at her, from Darcy’s conduct last night to her apartment now. It was exactly what Natasha would’ve done.

She needed to have a talk with this so-called intern.

* * *

The moment that Darcy and Natasha lock eyes, she _knows._ Her own training is reflected back to her in every line in Darcy's body. Although Darcy doesn't reply at once to Natasha's question, she certainly understands it. There’s a sudden stiffness in her shoulders and Natasha itches to go for a knife.

All at once, the Winter Soldier is looming behind Darcy and it is all Natasha can do to stay relaxed and not rub at her scar. She is moderately certain she could have handled Darcy; the Winter Soldier tilts the odds far from Natasha’s favour. Where was Clint, anyway?

Her soulmate's presence seems to make Darcy's mind up, and when she speaks, her tone is nearly conversational. "You were a legend in the Red Room. We studied you, you know. Before you defected, of course. "

"What about after?" Natasha asks, curious despite herself about a glimpse of the life she left behind.

A smile tugs at Darcy's lips. "Oh, we studied you even more, then. After all, you got out." The smile disappears. "Imagine how upset I was to learn that you got out only to jump back in for the other side."

Natasha raises an eyebrow, oddly defensive. "What else would I do? People like us can't do anything else."

"Did you ever try?"

Natasha thinks back and doesn’t answer. Purposeless and fresh from killing her handler, she’d lunged for the redemption SHIELD had offered her, hadn’t considered any other way to clean her ledger.

"I just want to be left alone,” Darcy tells her, apparently taking her silence as an answer in itself. “Let Bucky be the big story."

At his flinch, she reconsiders. “Okay, scratch that. Poor choice of words. No big story. Just… don’t tell anyone? Please?”

Natasha is seriously considering her request when Friday chimes discreetly and Tony’s voice comes over the intercom.

“Hey Lewis, we’re going to need you up here. The lift should bring you straight up. Bring the Tin Man while you’re – ow, Rogers, that -”

In the resulting silence, Darcy and Bucky trade glances. Finally, Darcy shrugs and goes to summon the elevator, which opens immediately.

Darcy gestures for Natasha to precede them into the elevator and gives her a sardonic smile when Natasha makes no effort to move.

“I’ll take the next one up.” She might not want to fight them, but the thought of being in an enclosed area with the Winter Soldier makes her distinctly uneasy.

When Natasha does get to the meeting room, Darcy is settled into a chair and Bucky stands at her back. Dr Foster sits beside her, but Thor left early this morning on some Asgardian diplomatic business.

“Oh good, you’re here,” Tony says. “I was just telling Lewis how we did a security audit of her staff email.”

“I have a staff email?” Darcy asks, very much an intern again.

“Of course you do!” Tony replies, affronted. “Everyone at Stark Industries has one. There was a memo sent out. Why didn’t you read it?”

“Probably because you sent it by email,” Clint quips from his seat in the corner. His hair is dusted with black and a bruise seems to be forming on his cheekbone, and Natasha resolves to have a talk with him after Tony gets to his point.

“Be nice,” Pepper chides. “Besides, Tony only found out about the staff emails yesterday.”

Tony pouts, but quickly perks up. “Anyway, we found _this_. It arrived some weeks ago but was swept into spam because this photo was the only content in the email.”

The screen on the wall turns on, revealing the face of a young woman, somewhere around Darcy’s age. Short blonde hair hangs limply around her thin face and she holds a newspaper, the date clearly visible.

Tony’s voice turns hard. “The subject line was ‘Darcy, come home’. Care to explain?”

All eyes turn to Darcy, who has frozen in her seat, face ashen.

“Darcy, who is she?” Dr Foster asks.

“That’s Anna,” Darcy whispers.

“Your sister? She doesn’t look much like you.”

Natasha clears her throat. “You have a sister?”

Dr Foster looks over at her, confused. “Yeah, Darcy has four, right? Only I think one’s…” Her voice trails off at the look on Natasha’s face. “What’d I miss?”

Natasha is asking herself the same question, only now she’s starting to understand. Darcy had slipped earlier, but she hadn’t noticed at the time, blinded as she was by her own blood-soaked training.  Now her eyes are open, she has a very bad feeling about what Dr Foster has brought into their midst.  “She’s not your sister, is she?” she demands. “None of them are.”

Darcy finally turns to face her, mouth in a bitter line. “Yes, they are, in everything but blood.” She raises an eyebrow. “What, you didn’t think I got out alone, did you?”


	4. Just Watch Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy has some explaining to do  
>   
>  _Everybody's telling me who I ought to be_  
>  _Who I'm not and where I gotta be_

Silence. 

From the look on Romanova’s face, it appears the idea of multiple defections hadn’t occurred to her. Being a college student must be rubbing off on her, because Darcy has to stifle the urge to snicker. She never imagined the Black Widow looking gobsmacked. Beautiful and deadly, the subject of hushed whispers, placed on some shadowy pedestal by tutors and trainees alike – it simply didn’t fit. 

 “Got out? Got out from  _where_?” Jane asks, and Darcy no longer feels like laughing. Jane’s going to hate her when she finds out the truth. She can't count on Thor as a moderating presence (or more likely, as a distraction), because he's not here. From memory, he would be on Vanaheim by now, representing Asgard at some peace conference. 

“The Red Room,” Barton says, snapping his fingers. “I’m right, aren’t I? She’s got the same look about her you did. Only, you know, less murderous.” 

Knuckles white on her armrests, Darcy takes a deep breath and nods. 

The room explodes into a frenzy of questions. Even Barton looks surprised, as if he didn’t expect to be right. Jane’s confused, bless her soul, as is Rogers. Everyone else is reacting with varying combinations of disbelief and fear. 

“Quiet!” Rogers finally bellows. “What is the Red Room?” 

Surprisingly, it is Bucky who offers an answer. “Russian training ground for female espionage operatives, of which the Black Widow is their most famous graduate.” He finishes with a nod towards Romanova. 

“For- for spies? And you’re one of them?” Jane stammers, and the look in her eyes is everything Darcy feared. 

Nodding once more, she closes her eyes and rests her head against the back of her chair. Anya’s face flashes up against the back of her eyelids and her eyes shoot open. 

“When exactly did that email come in?” 

“Three months ago,” Pepper says, glancing down at her tablet. “A few days before that break in. Was that you who killed those men?” 

Darcy nods, seeing no point in hiding it. “They must’ve sent it to convince me to come back, and when that didn’t work, they sent the goons.” 

“That makes sense. They didn’t seem to be the normal corporate espionage types.” 

“Hold up, hold up. I think we’re focussing on the wrong thing here,” Clint breaks in. “Aren’t we going to talk about the  _Russian_ _assassin_ in our midst?” 

“Uh, which one?” Tony snarks, earning a glare from half the room.  

“Tony, enough," Pepper says. "Who is this girl in the photo, Darcy? You said she was your sister.”  

Darcy pastes a smile on and makes her voice extra-chirpy. “That’s Anna! We went to school together.” 

Clint’s eyes narrow. “School, as in the Red Room? How is she still alive? I thought you had to kill each other as part of the training.” 

 “Turns out, training twenty-eight girls but only getting a single operative is not the most efficient way of doing things." There is a snort from beside her, but Darcy just continues, "better a few great operatives than a single perfect one." She pauses, considering how much to reveal. "After the defections, they even let us bond, to a certain extent. They thought if they gave us each other, we’d have a reason to stay.” 

“Hold up. Defections?” Barton asks, emphasising the ‘s’. 

“Yeah, her and Belova. They disappeared about the same time?” 

Romanova gives a short bark of a laugh. “Yelena didn’t defect. She didn’t have the imagination. She tried to kill me, or drag me back - I’m still not sure which one. SHIELD cleaned that up for me – they must have done a better job than I thought to disappear her so effectively." 

For the first time in a long while, Darcy is struck speechless. When she finds her voice again, it’s oh-so-slightly squeaky. “Are you saying she didn’t defect?” 

Her only answer is a flat stare. 

“We based our escape on hers! She's the one who stayed hidden, even after you joined SHIELD. We wanted that.” 

“That's that ‘we’ again,” Barton says, a frown wrinkling his brow. “Who exactly are we talking about?” 

Darcy chooses her words carefully. “There were five of us who survived training; they’re all the family I have left!” 

The metal hand on her shoulder tightens but she doesn’t correct herself out loud. If one good thing has come out of this, it is that the spotlight has been taken off her soulmate and onto her. 

"I can't believe we missed the defection of five Red Room recruits," Barton mutters. 

Darcy shrugs. "Like I said, we didn't want to be found." 

“So what happens now?” Pepper asks, always the practical one. Darcy liked her: a day ago, they'd be somewhere close to friends, what with the looking-after-reckless-idiots thing they had in common. She's not sure where they stand now. 

"I need to find Anna, get her out. She'd never have gone back willingly." 

"You do realise that it's a trap, right?" 

Darcy levels a glare at Stark. "She's my sister. Not that you'd understand." 

"I'm just saying, you don't seem much like a Black Wid-" He stares at the knife protruding from the chair over his left shoulder. "What the hell? Friday, where did that come from?" 

"Ceramic blade, invisible to metal detectors." Darcy spins a second knife in her fingers, expression daring him to continue. A similar knife has appeared in Romanova's hand, clenched tightly in her fist, her focus laser-sharp. 

Satisfied that Stark will shut up for now, Darcy slides her remaining knife away. After a moment, Romanova does the same. 

Rogers clears his throat. “First order of business is to rescue this Anna, if she’s still alive. After that, we’ll see.” 

“We’re not going to arrest her?” Tony's voice is sceptical. 

“For what? There’s no record of me ever committing a crime on American soil.” 

“How about for fraud and false identification?” Jane snaps and Darcy winces. 

“Nonsense.” Rogers says. “If she’s anywhere as skilled as Nat –“ 

“I am,” Darcy interjects. 

“-then I’m sure Darcy would be a great addition to the Avengers.” 

“Yeah, that’s not going to happen.” 

“Excuse me?” 

“You heard me, Spangles. I’m not joining the Avengers. I’m finishing my Masters and getting a dog.” 

Rogers looks like she hit him on the back of the head with a board and she is momentarily sorry for the chaos she has unleashed upon his world in the last few hours. “But- but why not?” 

“Because I don’t want to. Because the whole reason I left the Red Room was to get away from this.” 

“But you have skills, a duty!” 

“A duty to what?” she scoffs. “To America? Not my country. To use my powers for good and never evil? Why should I? I never volunteered for that life!” 

 “Darcy, none of us volunteered for this!” A tiny part of Darcy’s mind notes that Romanova’s accent grows stronger when she is upset. 

Darcy points an accusing finger at Steve Rogers, who flushes. 

“Okay, ignoring Rogers, the rest of us didn’t volunteer!” 

“But you’re here now,” she points out. “You choose to go out and do good. I’m choosing something different.” 

“Why should we help you, then?” Rogers asks, watching her reaction. “If you’re not one of us, why should we get involved? Why shouldn't we hand this mess over to SHIELD?”  

Darcy freezes, mind working furiously. Once again, it’s her soulmate to the rescue. “Do you really want a foreign organisation of unknown allegiance to have their own Black Widow? This might be your only chance to neutralise this asset. Besides, where she goes, I follow. Betray us to SHIELD and you'll never see me again.” 

Rogers flinches, and  _damn_  she’s going to have to get to the bottom of all this because the good Captain’s resolve crumples like a house of cards. 

Stark’s watching with interest too, but Pepper’s looking at something on her tablet and Jane is steadfastly ignoring Darcy. Romanova and Barton seem to be communicating silently, but for all her training, Darcy can’t work out what they’re saying. 

“I have research to do,” Jane announces, pushing herself away from the table and standing. “And apparently, I need to start looking for a new assistant.” 

“I have a meeting to get to,” Pepper says, standing. She pauses at the door. “For what it’s worth, Darcy, you’ve been a good worker here and we’re happy to keep you on, even in some other capacity.” 

With their exit, only the Avengers are left in the room. Her soulmate slips into the chair Jane vacated as Romanova perches on the table beside Barton. Rogers has his stern face back on and even Stark looks serious for once. 

“Alright Lewis,” Stark says. “Spill.”


	5. I Wanna Know You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A very important conversation  
>   
>  _I wanna go there where you go_  
>  _I wanna find out what you know_

Darcy rolls her eyes, falling back on the intern. “About what, exactly? Gimme something to go on here.”

“How about the defection? How did you manage it?”

* * *

_She circles her opponent, watches for tell-tale muscle movements. She dodges the fist coming towards her face, misses the leg that sweeps her feet from under her, catches her opponent in the jaw with an elbow. Both girls topple to the mats in a tangle of limbs but she manages to get Katya in a chokehold._

_"Did you mean it? Wanting to get out?" she hisses._

_Katya bucks and throws her off, and they are back to circling each other, gazes intent. "That won't work." From her conversational tone, their handlers would think she's talking about the move._

_"Worth a try, isn't it?"_

_There is only minute hesitation, then Katya gives a minuscule nod, and a plan is born._

_~~~_

_She startles awake in the dark. A hand covers her mouth, drums a secret pattern onto her cheek._

_She relaxes, taps a different pattern and the hand is removed._

_"Did you hear?" The question is barely breathed into her ear._

_"About Romanova? She goes on long-term missions all the time."_

_"Belova's gone too. The handlers are in an uproar."_

_"We need to talk with the others."_

_Together, they wake the others, relay the news. A conclave is formed on her bed, a debate begins that still never goes louder than whispers._

_"How'd they do it?"_

_"It doesn't matter. They'll be found soon enough."_

_"I can't do this anymore."_

_"Me neither."_

_"You have to – both of you. You know what they do to girls they have no use for."_

_"Give them a husband and a cow farm in Siberia?"_

_"Yes, exactly that. Only the cow is dead and so is the husband."_

_"How do we know they aren't both on assignment?"_

_"Belova was scheduled to return yesterday. She's never late."_

_"They were going through the Widow's quarters. She gutted the last guy who did that."_

_"It may still come to nothing."_

_"But if they got out?"_

_"Then we can do it too."_

_~~~_

_She comes into her room, freezes when she sees Olga sitting on her bed._

_"What are you doing here?" she hisses, even as Yulia enters to join them._

_"We have a new schedule. Apparently, now we need language practice. Today, we speak English to each other. Tomorrow is an hour of French."_

_~~~_

_Their training gets no less brutal after that, but they are no longer encouraged to kill a downed opponent. They learn different ways to disable and sabotage. Infiltration and surveillance dominate their classes. Sofia doesn't come back from a snow survival exercise and they mourn her together._

_The next day, Sofia’s training partner Anya doesn't turn up to their hour of language time and she fears the worst._

_"She started her bleeding," Katya confides. Daria nods, relieved. She had started her own menses a few months ago. When the handlers had found about it, she was sent to medical and she has not had them again since._

* * *

"Wait," Rogers interrupts, half-rising from his seat. "How old were you?"

Darcy shrugs. "We were about ten when the Widow defected."

Rogers sinks back, shaken. "I had no idea. You were just children! Why didn't anyone say anything?"

"We assumed you knew," Stark offers. "And you were just being a dick about it."

Rogers looks troubled and doesn't reply. Darcy can't help but feel a small surge of vindication.

"But Nat defected..." Barton says, doing the maths. "Just how old are you? You don't look your age."

"We got the normal enhancements for reduced aging and better reflexes. Not as effective as what she got, though. They stopped giving us the good stuff when their success story defected to the States.”

Something that is almost a smile flits over Romanova's lips. "So that's how you planned it. But how did you actually get out?"

* * *

_They have been on missions for a few years now, both solo and in teams. Usually, one or two of them are left behind but this operation requires five simultaneous strikes. To the handlers, the assassinations go like clockwork until the Assets do not return back._

_In a little cafe on the other side of town, five girls sit down for coffee. Their clothes are fashionable but not new, their hair freshly cut and styled._

_"I've got the passports," says one, drawing a stack out of her bag, all from different countries. There seem to be more than one for each girl, but they divide them equally._

_"I've got cash," says another. "Who wants some francs?"_

_Two more of them have train tickets they hand out at random. The last has already shared out her bounty of headscarves._

_"Are we really doing this?" asks one, dubiously. "What if we get caught?"_

_"We're not," one soothes, as another says "That's a risk we have to take."_

_Looks are traded across the table._

_"I'm not doing it," the dissenter announces, getting to her feet. "I can't." With that, she leaves._

_"Olga, wait!"_

_One girl hurries after her. Another makes to follow but is held back with a hand on her arm._

_Finally, the door swings open again and a girl walks back inside, alone. As soon as she sits down, whispers erupt._

_"Where is she?"_

_"We can't let her leave."_

_"She'll ruin everything!"_

_The one who re-entered looks down at her hands. "It's taken care of." She dumps two passports onto the table. "We need to get rid of these."_

_"I'll do it," one volunteers._

_A pause, then, "it's really happening, yeah? I'll never see you again? Any of you?"_

_"That's the plan."_

_"I'm not going to miss this, but... I will miss you. Sisters still?"_

_Murmurs of assent and nods from around the table. One by one, the girls leave the cafe without a backwards glance, and step out into the sun._

* * *

“And they just let you go?”

Darcy raises a single eyebrow at Romanova. It took her several months in front of the mirror to perfect such an expression, but at times like this she considers it well spent. “Of course not. But they’d spent years teaching us infiltration and sabotage. They had bigger problems to deal with and not enough manpower – and of course, they didn’t want to admit that they’d just lost an entire class of Assets.”

“Which brings up another problem,” Clint says. “Just how many girls did the Red Room train?”

“Overall, or how many survived?” Darcy asks, a bitter twist to her lips, because Tatiana had always greeted her with a hug and Clara had loved kittens and Irina had wanted to be a ballerina and maybe they would’ve grown out of it but they never got the chance.

“How many do we have to worry about?” he clarifies.

“None, I think.” At his sceptical look, she explains, “The project was expensive, especially for only two real successes – the Widow and Belova, and then both disappeared. There was talk that we were to be the pilot for a modified programme but I expect they shut it down after we left.”

“And you didn’t go back to make sure?”

“Why would I? I-” Darcy sits back, blinking. “Is the room supposed to be spinning?”

 “You’re rather good at playing helpless when you don’t want to answer,” notes Romanova.

“I’d take that as a compliment, but I haven’t eaten today. Neither of us have. Someone ambushed us on the way to breakfast.” She glares at her soulmate. “You totally have a faster metabolism than me. Why didn’t you say anything?”

“You come first. This is important to you.”

“Yeah, well, you’re pretty important to me, too!”

“Didn’t you just meet last night?”

“You don’t have a soulmark, Stark, so shut it.”

Stark rocks back. “How’d you know that?”

“It was in your file.”

“I have a file?”

Darcy sighs. “Son of Howard Stark, founder of SHIELD, and the billionaire inventor of Stark Industries. Of course, you had a file and you know what, I’m just going to the lounge because this is going nowhere unless you want to turn us over to the aforementioned SHIELD in which case I hope they feed us.”

"I wasn't really going to tell SHIELD," Rogers mutters. "I just wanted to see what you'd do."

“Whatever.”

Never before has the ‘Avengers Assemble’ alarm sounded so good to Darcy. The Avengers scramble into action.

“This isn’t over,” Stark insists, but Darcy only has an eye roll for him. Taking a deep breath, she pushes herself to her feet, and leaning on her soulmate, they leave the room.

* * *

Truth be told, he had noticed, noted, and ignored his own hunger several times during the conversation with the Avengers. While the details of his soulmate’s training and escape were of interest to them, he is more concerned with her current well-being. This sister of hers is obviously important, and he has already drafted three plans for retrieval once she is located.

The elevator takes them to a spacious area with couches and a small kitchen. Darcy makes a beeline for a door that turns out to be a pantry. She pulls out some bread and then turns to a fridge for some fixings. With neat, practised movements, she assembles a pile of sandwiches and pushes them towards him. He takes half and pushes the rest back at her, plucking the knife from her fingers as he does.

She makes a face but starts eating. Within minutes, there is a pile of crumbs in front of him and he starts putting more together, though not as neatly as she did. A full loaf and a half of bread later, and he no longer feels the need to refuel. At some point, Darcy placed a glass of water in front of him and he has drained it several times.

"You get grumpy when you are hungry," he notes.

She snorts, crumpling up the rubbish on the counter. "Was that in my file?"

“It was not,” he tells her. “I believe they expected me to use a more efficient method of killing you than starvation.” Too late he realises that it may have been the wrong thing to say, but she looks amused rather than worried. "You're not upset?”

“Well, your mission brought us together, so I can't be too mad.” She leans on the counter to look at him. “What _did_ my file say?”

“Average combat skills, expert manipulation skills, highly compliant until defection, and a strong protective streak.” At the time, he had not thought of the latter as curious. Later, he had wondered when it had been relevant, but it makes more sense after hearing of her training.

Darcy purses her lips at the list. “Huh. Guess I should feel flattered.” She sighs, and comes around the counter to tug him to one of the couches. It’s one of the firmer ones and gives them both a good line of sight to the elevator. Once they’re both seated, she curls into his side. He stiffens at the contact until she pokes him in the side. “I need this, okay? I was hoping to avoid the conversation we just had.”

Tentatively, he slides an arm around her. The movement is both strange and unfamiliar, but he can feel her relax against him. “I just wasn’t expecting any of this,” she mumbles. “I like my life!”

“Tell me about it?” he asks, unsure what else to say. He hadn’t been expecting this either and is suddenly desperate to know about what feels like his only anchor in this storm. That blond man – he _knows_ him, but he doesn’t remember him, and the disconnect unsettles him.

A soft exhale. “I’ve been studying political science at Culver University. I was getting tired of campus life, so I applied for an internship with Jane Foster – the one who stormed out. Long story short, we met Thor and got a permanent research position at Stark Industries. I’m pretty sure she hates me now.”

“Why?”

“All that time in Puente Antiguo, it was the two of us living in a single trailer. She really opened up to me. Parent troubles, her ex...”

“And you think she’s hurt that you lied to her?”

“Yeah. I told her what I could. I just left some of it out.”

He shrugs. He doesn’t see the problem, but it bothers her. “Would it help to talk to her alone?”

“I hope so. Yet another conversation that’s going to suck.”

“She means a lot to you as well.”

Darcy nods. “She was the first person I got close to since leaving the Red Room, the reason I was starting putting down roots here. We’ve been here a couple of years now. The apartment you shot up was the first place that’s really been mine, ever.”

“I’m sorry,” he says.

“Not your fault.”

He looks down at her, nestled into his side when his hand was around her throat less than a day before. The bruises are still dark against her skin, the outline of his fingers visible. “How can you say that? How can you just let it go?”

Something about his words startles a laugh from her, but she sobers quickly. “I’ve been there, remember? I was ‘highly compliant’. I did what they ordered. Never questioned, never complained, never drew attention until everything was ready. Slipping up would’ve meant my death, maybe the death of my sisters. I did what I had to and so did you.”

“You don’t know what I’ve done,” he says, jaw tight.

“No,” she agrees, “but I can guess at most of it. The Widow wasn’t the only legend in the Red Room. We used to dissect your reputation like my roommates pored over the latest gossip mag at Culver.” She screws her face up. “I can’t imagine being that innocent for real.”

“How so?”

“All they had to think about was grades and boys. They all had problems, but y’know, nothing serious. It was kinda nice to be one of them for a while. They were _very_ impressed with my alcohol tolerance even though that meant I was the one putting them to bed. Who knew that disposing of bodies 101 would prove so useful?”

“What else did you learn?” he asked, fascinated.

‘Everything a girl needs to be a successful spy and assassin, from improvisational bomb-making to seduction and manipulation. Combat training, of course. Not that it helped last night. I’d be dead if you hadn’t stopped.”

“I outweigh you, was better armoured, and have not been hiding out as a scientist for the last two years. If I had been a normal, unenhanced operative, I would be the one dead.”

“Are you trying to make me feel better? Because that is strangely comforting.”

They sit in companionable silence for a while. Afer a few minutes, he looks over to see she has fallen asleep on his shoulder.

* * *

Darcy is only mildly put out to discover she drooled all over Bucky's shoulder while she slept. When your best friend hates you and your sister has been recaptured by the ruthless organisation that trained you to be killers from childhood, what's a little drool between soulmates, anyway?

They find they have been confined to the Tower while the Avengers are on their mission. As the lockdown extends both ways and will keep out all intruders, this doesn’t bother either of them for the moment. Darcy has Friday order them Chinese and gets the unique pleasure of seeing her highly-skilled, extremely deadly soulmate struggle with chopsticks.

“I’m pretty sure the spring roll is supposed to go in your mouth, not the floor,” she deadpans. Bucky has a very impressive murderous glare but it is a lot less effective when it is fixed on an errant piece of dinner. She even offers to let him use a fork, but he refuses.

“Tell me about your sisters,” he says, between embarrassingly small mouthfuls of stir-fry noodles.

Darcy steals a piece of lemon chicken from the container nearest him and chews thoughtfully. “Anya… she’s an improviser. As long as they let her do her thing, she’d get it done. There was this show Jane loves, called MacGyver? That’s Anya. If you’re going to back her into a corner, make sure there isn’t a supply closet there. She was always good at getting out of sticky situations, maybe because she got into them the most. She just had to show off all the time, loved being the centre of attention, even if it meant we’d have more clean up to do.”

“Did you work together often?”

“Sometimes, though more often I was partnered with Katya when not on my own. Katya is the complete opposite. She’d always have a plan, a complex set piece, and contingency after contingency. Anya drove her crazy, so they almost never were paired up.”

“And the others?”

“Yulia is more… direct, shall we say? She goes in, gets the job done, and gets out. She doesn’t really have the patience for anything more. Think Thor, but in high heels. She didn’t want them to be a hindrance so she practised fighting in them until her feet bled. And Olga?” Darcy sighs deeply. “All Olga wanted was to dance. As long as she could do her ballet, she was happy.”

Darcy looks up from her empty carton to see her soulmate watching her, spring roll in hand.

“I had a sister,” he says quietly. “Her name was Becky and I can’t remember her face.”

She puts on hand over his, takes a deep breath. “Shall I put on a movie or something? We can make popcorn and throw it at the screen for Stark to clean up.”

Later, she couldn’t say for certain what movie they watched, but it made them laugh. When the credits roll, they go to bed hand in hand.


	6. Don't Wait

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Darcy finally gets moving... And maybe wishes she hadn't
> 
> _We're not indestructible_   
>  _Our lives, unpredictible_   
>  _It can turn on a dime_

Darcy wakes feeling _twitchy_. Something’s wrong, and she can’t put a finger on it until she finds herself putting on a sports bra without thinking. With a quiet shrug, she pulls on the rest of the outfit, ties her hair into a braid that is then wound into a bun.

“I’m going to the gym, I need to work out. Want to spar?”

Bucky nods and Friday directs them to a stash of clothes roughly his size. Apparently, the Avengers damage their clothes on a regular basis, even when living at the Tower, and Friday has an auto-ordering subroutine to keep them well stocked with replacements.

She starts with some stretches at the _barre_ that Stark must have installed for Romanova, moves into a gentle warm-up. After so many years the movements flow into each other without conscious effort from her. When she is ready, she steps out onto the mat where Bucky is waiting.

They start slow, testing each other’s limits. His reach is greater but she is faster, and as long as she can dodge him, she can keep going. She can feel herself tiring fast, but it’s so _good_ to do this again.

She kicks him in the chest, launching into a backflip, and he stumbles back, surprised by her dexterity. She has no chance to congratulate herself, though, for he picks himself up and comes at her again. The next time she tries that move, he grabs her foot and twists. She twists with him, locking her legs around his neck, their momentum sending them both to the mat with a bone-jarring _thump_.

There is a low whistle from the doorway and both turn to see Rogers staring, wide-eyed. He is unshaven and his hands are wrapped for boxing. Darcy narrows her eyes at him, then disentangles herself from Bucky and rolls to her feet.

“I notice you didn’t go for the throat,” she says, ignoring Rogers, and Bucky nods.

“I’ve done enough damage there already.” He rubs his shoulder, frowning. “Your kicks are more effective that your punches, but you need them to be more precise.”

She rolls her eyes, grabs a towel. “Now you sound like our not-at-all dearly departed Trainer Vasilenka. We were never good enough for him. I’m so glad he was in Katya’s extraction team that day.” She gives a satisfied smirk. “They should have been more careful with their explosive supplies.”

“About that,” Rogers says, still in the doorway. “We think we know how your friend was caught. Friday was set to inform you when you have finished whatever you were doing.”

Darcy bites her lip, exchanges a look with Bucky. He dips his head, ready to follow her lead on this.

“Shower first,” she decides, “and then food. You call fill us in over bre- lunch, I guess.”

* * *

She’s starting to hate the conference room. There’s been a lot of talking there, and not a lot of doing. Still, part of that is her fault, and maybe today they’ll get some answers.

They put together some wraps to eat during the briefing. Darcy’s taking her first bite when Stark says, “we ran your sister through facial recognition,” and puts up a photo on the conference screen wall. She doesn’t choke, but it’s a near thing. “She can _not_ have been that stupid,” she whispers when she has her breath back.

It’s Anya, heavily made up and sporting a pixie cut in some sort of… ad campaign?

“This is an ad for a department store based in Australia. This particular campaign came out late last year. As far as we can tell, this is the first time she’s modelled for them, or anyone else.”

Darcy lets her forehead hit the table with a groan.

“Are you sure you still want to go find her? No need to throw anything, just pointing out that she doesn’t seem like the sharpest tool in the shed.”

Darcy looks around, flipping through mental files. Romanova grew up in the Red Room, Stark and Rogers were only children, “Barton, you got any siblings? Especially annoying or stupid ones?”

“That seems like a pretty good description of my brother, to be honest.”

“Would you leave him in the hands of the Red Room?”

Barton rocks back, disgust on his face. “Hell, no. Tasha’s told me some of it, that’s just screwed up.”

“Exactly.”

“What are you going to do?” Rogers asks.  “Do you at least know where they took her?”

“Pull up the photo they sent me,” Darcy orders. She takes one look and nods. “That’s our old dorm room. There’s a crack behind her from when Tania threw Irina into the wall. She’s in Russia, in the old military base where we were trained.”

“And what’s your plan for extracting her?” Rogers presses. “We all know it’s a trap.”

Darcy’s been asking herself the same question, has discussed a few plans with Bucky. She shrugs. “Sneak in, steal Anya, blow it up. I wanted to go in alone but-“

“No,” Bucky says, crossing his arms across his chest.

“I agree,” Romanova says. “They know you’re coming.  You’ll be caught and we’ll have to deal with Mister Grumpy here.” The gesture she makes could refer to either Bucky or Rogers, and it’s hard to tell which looks more offended.

“I know that,” Darcy says. “I’m not stupid. I said I wanted to, but I can’t do it alone. The only hitch is getting her out without a passport. I doubt she has any of hers left.”  She cocks an eyebrow at Stark. “Can I borrow a plane?”

“What’ll you give me for it?”

“Information on who killed your parents.”

Stark blanches. “They died in a car crash!”

“Terrible accident, that. Except it wasn’t. I saw that much in your file, though there were no details. But the training facility had an archive for all mission reports, including that one. We’ll take a look while we’re there.”

Stark nods slowly. “Fine.”

“So we’re just going to let the Russian assassins take a Stark jet back to Russia?” Barton asks sceptically. “That is a terrible plan.”

“Do you have a better one?” she asks.

He shrugs. “Why don’t we just go in ourselves? Stark could blow the base wide open. We’ll get the girl and be home for dinner.”

“The facility belongs to the Russian government, there’s no overt threat we are responding to, and the girl is a Russian citizen. Their government might take it badly if we were to intervene openly,” Rogers points out. “Whoever goes in has to do so outside the auspices of the Avengers. As effective as he is, Stark’s too visible – he’s practically the symbol of American capitalism.”

“So what, we’re just going to give them the state of the art jet and hope they come back with it when they’re done?”

“Barton has a point. He should go with them.”

“Did you just volunteer me for babysitting duty, Tasha? Why don’t you do it? It can be a little Russian reunion”

“Yes, put the Black Widow and the Winter Soldier in an enclosed space together. I’m sure that will end well. Besides, someone needs to fly the plane.”

Darcy looks between the Black Widow and Hawkeye. Even now, their bickering is comfortable, easy, as if they’ve said these things a thousand times before and will say them a thousand times yet. She wants that, those roots and connections, and if she has to fly back into hell to retrieve her sister, then so be it.

“I could fly it,” Rogers offers.

Darcy narrows her eyes at him. “I heard the last time you flew a plane, you crashed into an iceberg and slept for 70 years. I had a few rough flights but that really takes the cake. Thanks, but no thanks.”

“Just for that, I’ll do it,” Barton chortles as Rogers sits back, disgruntled. Stark looks positively _delighted_.

“Were you always this much fun, Lewis, or did it come free with the mysterious past and killer soulmate? It’s almost worth it to see Cap get sassed.”

“When do you want to do this?” Barton asks when the laughter dies down. “The sooner, the better, right? We could leave tomorrow, or even today, be back in time for Wednesday wing night.”

Darcy nods. “Yeah, sooner is better. Though they’ve had her for months now. A few more hours won’t hurt, and there’s something I need to do first.”

* * *

Jane looks up as the doors to her lab _whoosh_ open. When she sees who it is, she steadfastly returns to the papers in front of her. “What are _you_ doing here?”

The animosity in her voice is mitigated by the hurt Darcy can hear, but she doesn’t know if it will be enough. “Stark gave me temporary access. Jane, I came to apologise.”

“I don’t want to hear it,” Jane snaps.

“My lady, this is most unbecoming.”

Jane’s head snaps up in surprise. It was pure chance that Darcy ran into Thor on her way to Jane’s lab. She’d had time to give him the briefest of rundowns on what he’d missed while on Vanaheim. He’d been understanding; in fact, he’d been most outraged at the Red Room’s treatment of children. While warriors are well-regarded on Asgard, to force that life on those too young to choose is near-unthinkable.

 “The Lady Darcy has been most shamefully treated by those in a position of power over her. She deserves far better treatment from one who calls her friend.”

“Why? Doesn’t she have _sisters_ for that? Ones who she hasn’t lied to?”

Darcy blinks in surprise. So _that’s_ it. “Jane, I’m sorry! You’re my closest friend, you know that. Just because we haven’t grown up together doesn’t mean I love you any less! I haven’t even seen any of them for years, either. I just wanted to leave it all behind. Wouldn’t you?”

Jane bites her lip and doesn’t reply. Darcy’s phone buzzes in her pocket, reminding her it’s time to go. As she leaves, she tosses a final thought behind her. “I might’ve lied about names and places, but I didn’t lie about who I was. I’m your friend, Jane, if you still want me.”

Thor claps her on the shoulder as she goes. She only buckles slightly, and the encouragement is worth the bruise it will leave.

* * *

“You don’t have to come,” he mutters.

The blond man doesn’t halt, just continues up the ramp. “I thought you could do with the backup.”

“This is supposed to be outside the Avengers, plausible deniability if the government catch on. You can’t say you do not represent America, not with that suit on.”

“Then I’ll stay in the quinjet and be moral support. You can’t tell me you don’t need that.”

He stares at this irritating, stubborn, _familiar_ man. “Why are you _doing_ this?”

“Because you’re my friend. I know you don’t remember me, but I’m with you to the end of the line.”

A flash of memory. “I thought you were smaller…” he says before he can stop himself.

A smile like sunshine breaks across Steve’s face and he has to break eye contact before the odd pressure in his head can build any further. “We should get moving,” he says gruffly. “Where’s Darcy?”

“I can see her on her way,” Barton calls from the cockpit, and Bucky relaxes. Moments later, Darcy jogs up the ramp. She raises her eyebrows at Steve’s presence but doesn’t comment. He watches as she straps herself in beside him and calls the all clear to Barton, who starts the takeoff procedures. The ramp closes and the engines start; Darcy grips his hand tightly. They’re off.

* * *

“It’s too quiet,” Darcy murmurs into her comm. “The patrols should be much more frequent than this.” She only agreed to the in-ear comms after Steve threatened to come and keep an eye on them. This was they only was to keep him in the jet.

“You do remember the part where it’s meant to be a trap, right?”

“Why, yes, Barton, I do.”

They pass a nondescript door and Darcy pauses. “Wait.”

Bucky watches her back as she eases the door open. A few quick steps inside and she looks around, two brunettes reflected in dusty mirrors. Suddenly she is eleven again, and watching Trainer Petrova praise Olga’s form as they hold their _pliés_. Bucky notices her posture, already near-perfect, lengthen and her steps smooth out. The moment is broken when their earpieces crackle.

“Buck, how’re you going?”

Twin huffs of annoyance. “’Bout the same as five minutes ago, punk.”

Crossing back to the corridor, the silent halls now hold whispers of memory. Girls laugh and cry and bled and die around every corner, just out of sight, out of hearing. _That_ leads to the firing range, down _there_ is the medical centre. They reach a crossroads and Darcy frowns. “Our rooms were down that way –“ she gestures to the left “- but the records room is the next right.”

“You’ve got ten minutes before the loop we’ve got on the security cameras will be noticed,” Barton reminds them, and Bucky’s face tightens.

“I’m not leaving you.”

Darcy shrugs. “That’s the price I agreed for the jet.”

She holds his gaze and his shoulders slump ever so slightly. “Fine.”

“Remember, mission report: December 16, 1991. They should be filed in date order.”

Bucky nods. “Be safe.”

She snorts softly. “You too.”

It’s almost an anti-climax when Darcy reaches the dorms. There are guards at the door, but she knows about five other ways in, and none of those are guarded. The vents from the storeroom around the corner are a tight squeeze, but she didn’t feel like going in through the roof.

Anya spins when the vent cover pops open. She drops into a fighting stance, doesn’t relax when she sees who it is. “Darya.”

The breath whooshes out of Darcy at her name on Anya’s lips. They’d hacked into the cameras, tracked Anya’s movements, but until this moment, she hadn’t realised what it would be like to see one of her sisters again. They are at nearly opposite ends of the large dormitory. It had once held far more, but five beds still lined the closest wall, though only one held signs of use. It was if she’d never left.

“Hello, Anya.”

 “How did you get here?”

Darcy grins, sauntering forward. “I borrowed a jet. Come on, let’s get out of here. We only have a few minutes.”

Anya’s face goes blank as her posture relaxes, and her hands drop to her sides. “You came.”

“Of course I did, silly. You’re my sister.”

“No.” Darcy narrows her eyes, halts two beds away, as Anya continues. “You’re my mission.” She vaults the beds between them, her face determined, and aims a punch at Darcy’s face.

Darcy dodges it, knocking Anya’s fist aside. “What are you _doing_?”

“Completing my mission,” Anya says, lashing out with her foot and sending them both to the floor.

“What’s the mission?” Darcy growls, dodging another punch. “Anya, what are the mission parameters?”

“Detain the rogue asset for rehabilitation,” Anya grates out, face stiff.

Darcy stops in shock for a moment, and it’s long enough for Anya to slam her head against the floor. She sees stars but bucks hard enough to throw Anya off and buy her time enough to roll to her feet. The door slams open to their side and booted footsteps surround them.

“Halt!” one orders, and Darcy shakes her head, the room spinning around her. Beside her, Anya stills, falls into parade rest, head bowed. The speaker comes closer, his gun pointed straight at Darcy.

“Keep an eye out, Romanova may be here too.”

Darcy snorts. “You think she’d trust me enough to come here? She hates my guts.”

The speaker relaxes but continues to watch her. “Restrain her,” he orders without looking around. “Asset, go to the debrief room.”

Anya follows a couple of them out of the room, not even looking back at Darcy as two thugs move to flank her. Darcy feels her chest contract painfully as her sister vanishes around the corner.

Bucky drops from the roof, straight onto the main guy’s head. Darcy grabs the nearest thug and sends him stumbling at the other man. His fingers tighten on his trigger but she has his gun and is swinging it at another target like a club. She considers firing it, but her balance is still off and Bucky is taking out the others so efficiently, it seems unnecessary.

As the last man falls to a metal fist, he comes over to her, checks her for injuries. “We heard it over the comms,” he tells her, satisfied she has nothing worse than the blow to the head. “I came as soon as I could.”

Darcy begins to shake. “I don’t understand what just happened. She _fought_ me.”

“Get out now, talk later,” Barton orders over the earpiece that is somehow still in her ear. “You’ve got a whole lot of guys incoming.”

“But Anya… they sent her to the debrief room.” She doesn’t know where that is, but Clint could find it, they’re still hooked into the cameras.

“She’s made her choice,” Steve says in their ears, and she in that moment she really hates him.

Her soulmate nods. “We have to go.” When she doesn’t respond to his tugging, he throws her over his shoulder and sets off at a light jog, careful not to jostle her too much.

“No! Put me down!”

“You come first,” he tells her, not slowing down. “Not her. Barton, wipe the cameras.”

“It’s all set to go. I’ll crash their system as soon as you’re out.”

The fluorescent lights of the base give way to the floodlights and shadows of the night outside, but Bucky doesn’t set her down until they are back at the jet. Barton starts the engines and Steve turns away as she bursts into tears.


	7. Little Do You Know

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Little do you know_   
>  _I'm still haunted by the memories_   
>  _Little do you know_   
>  _I'm trying to pick myself up piece by piece_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow NEW CHAPTER! Thank you all for your patience, and special shout outs to GreenEyedPixie87, Wynni, and LaurelCrown for the encouraging comments - they really work, believe me! Also big thanks to my roommate for putting up with me. You know who you are ;)

" _You're my mission._ "

Darcy is too well trained to bolt upright when her dream shocks her to wakefulness. Her eyes still shut and breathing even, she evaluates her surroundings. From the vibrations around her, she’s on the quinjet, strapped into her seat as it flies back to the Tower. She's still wearing her tactical gear, her knives a familiar weight on her forearms.

"I can tell you're awake," Bucky says from beside her, his voice quiet. "We're almost back at the Tower. How do you feel?"

She pries her eyes open, blinking around the dim interior of the jet. “Like Thor and his friends have been having a party inside my skull,” she admits, wincing. His hands are firm but gentle as he runs them over her scalp, checking for injuries. He hits a particularly sore spot and Darcy has to strangle a gasp of pain. Something must have shown on her face, for he pulls back immediately.

Muttering under his breath, he hits the releases and rummages around in a nearby pack. He comes up with a water bottle and shoves it into her hands. “You need to stay hydrated,” he says. “You would’ve lost a lot of liquid crying.”

Darcy doesn’t feel thirsty until she takes a long pull from the bottle. It’s some high-performance drink that ends in -ade and she normally avoids them like the plague, but suddenly she’s parched and she’s emptied the bottle down her throat. Bucky finds her another and she finishes that too. As he stuffs the empty bottle back into the pack, the hum of the engines shifts in tone.

They both glance over at the cockpit as a blond head pokes out. “We’re approaching the Tower,” Steve tells them. He pauses, as if to add something more, but returns to the cockpit with that simple pronouncement.

Bucky sits back and tightens his harness. He goes to tighten Darcy’s, but she slaps his hands away. “I can do this myself,” she mumbles, tugging at various straps and hoping that she’s not cutting circulation to anything vital.

The quinjet set down onto the Tower roof and Darcy stumbles down the ramp on her own two feet - barely. For a moment, she can’t work out why Stark is waiting for them, fingers fidgeting nervously though he covers it with bravado.

“From the distinct lack of an extra Russian assassin and the way Lewis is wobbling on her feet, I’m going to assume it didn’t go well?”

“You could say that,” Darcy says.

“But we did get the file, as agreed,” Bucky adds, and Darcy’s attention snaps to her soulmate. How could she have forgotten the file? She’d been planning to review it on the ride home, make sure there was nothing in there she didn’t want Stark - or any of the others - to find out.

Bucky pulls a folder from his pack and Darcy makes an abortive grab at it. “Let me see that,” she hisses in Russian.

“Why?” Bucky asks, holding it out of reach, though from the wary look in his eyes she would wager he already knows.

“Was it you?”

“I can’t remember,” he replies, his gaze darting away from hers.

“How do you forget?” she demands. She carries her ghosts with her every day, is still learning to live with their screams.

Confused blue eyes meet those of a darker hue. “What-”

“Sometime this century?”

Stark’s voice breaks through and Darcy looks around to see all the Avengers watching.

“What if it was you?” she asks quietly, casting one last glance at her soulmate. “We can’t tell Stark, he’ll go mental.”

“That’s his right. They were his parents. He deserves that much.”

“And what about you, then? What do you deserve?”

“Whatever I get.”

Darcy’s heart breaks at the bleak acceptance in Bucky’s voice, finds herself nodding slowly as her shoulders slump. Reaching around her, Bucky passes the file to Stark, who takes it with a scowl and flicks to the first page. “What the hell? This is in Russian.”

Darcy rolls her eyes so hard, the pounding behind her eyes triples in strength. “No, really? We only retrieved it from a base in Russia.”

Stark doesn’t acknowledge her barb, turns to the elevator, muttering. “Friday, I need you to-”

The Black Widow plucks the file from his hands mid-sentence and flips through it. She frowns, returns to the cover page.

“Who was it?” Bucky asks, almost hesitantly, and Darcy finds herself holding her breath.

Romanova shakes her head. “I don’t recognise the codename. Who the hell is the Lynx?”

Darcy’s blood runs cold. “That was us.”

“What!? You-”

She easily sidesteps Stark’s clumsy lunge, his face twisted with rage. Bucky catches the man’s fist and uses his momentum to send him sprawling.

“It wasn’t me,” she explains, perhaps futilely, as Rogers and Barton rush to stand between them. “That’s what they called us. We didn’t get individual codenames, even when we went on separate missions. I think they wanted to build a legend around us, the assassin who could be anywhere and everywhere, but we defected before the name could spread far.” 

Blowing out a breath, she takes the folder Romanova shoves at her and scans the page. The Cyrillic is both painfully familiar and strange, and it takes a moment for her brain to readjust. Given the dates in front of her, she and Katya had been in Egypt at the time. Flipping to the second page, she notes the gun that was signed out. A Dragunov. Only one of them would take a Dragunov as her first choice. “Yulia. It was Yulia.”

“Another of your sisters?” Stark spits, pushing past Rogers, though he makes no move to attack her.

She shrugs, her shoulders suddenly lighter. “Sure looks like it. You’d have to ask to be sure, though. Good luck with that. The last time I saw her was in Tuscany.” The relief of it not being Bucky is making her giddy, letting more than she had expected slip out of her mouth. Either that, or it’s the head wound. She reaches up to pat gingerly at her skull, catches Bucky’s concern.

“You should go see the medic for that,” Rogers suggests, and both her and Bucky’s eyes widen.

“It’s nothing,” she mutters, snatching her hand back. They have a _doctor_ here? How did she not know this? How had she so quickly lost the habit of identifying threats?

“That’s what I say,” Barton advises. “It doesn’t work. It’s just Jade on floor 82, though, with a room of medical instruments and a couple of docs on call for the big stuff. We don’t have a full-time medical staff.”

“Maybe we should,” Romanova suggests. “Seeing as we seem to have doubled our quota of reckless idiots.” The pointed look she gives Barton and Rogers would be hilarious if Darcy knew it wouldn’t be soon aimed at her. As Barton and Rogers protest, she catches Bucky’s eye and sidles towards the elevator, him one step behind. Somehow, they make it inside without incident and Darcy relaxes against Bucky’s side as he orders it to the floor she has come to think of as theirs.

* * *

The numbers on the elevator flick past their floor and Darcy glares up at the ceiling. The AI doesn’t really have a location, but that’s where she imagines Friday to be. “What’s going on?” she demands.

“My apologies, Miss Lewis, but Sir has requested you been taken to medical,” Friday replies. “He does not wish you to die before he can question you further.”

Darcy grits her teeth, but there is very little she can do. There are no panels for her to pry open and she is not in the mood for scaling a lift shaft that’s some 90 storeys high to avoid a medical examination. Her head wound may slow her down, but Bucky should be enough to stop the white coat from taking advantage of her injury. She hopes.

The elevator doors swoosh open to a sterile white hall out of Darcy’s nightmares. Bucky’s hand on her arm propels her forwards, through a set of swing double doors and towards a large Polynesian woman in blue scrubs. She mouths some pleasantries, but the noise in Darcy’s head drowns it all out.  Dimly, she is aware of Bucky guiding her to sit down. The medic shines a torch into her eyes and she flinches away from the splitting pain that ensues.

After some more poking and prodding, the medic presents her with a couple of pills. Darcy makes no move to take them, stares at the other woman stone-faced. Finally, the medic shrugs and replaces them in a bottle which she passes to Bucky. Her duty discharged, she returns to a small workstation and proceeds to ignore them both. Confused, Darcy gets to her feet and backs towards the door. The medic doesn’t look up and the pressure in Darcy’s head eases slightly as the doors swing shut between them.

* * *

Neither of them speaks until they are back in their rooms. Out of consideration for her aching head, the lights are dim, just barely bright enough to see by. Suddenly aware that she is dirty and sweaty, and her hair itches something awful, Darcy heads straight to the shower to wash the day off. Bucky makes to go after her, but she shuts the door in his face. She doesn’t bother sliding the old-fashioned bolt home; if he wants to get in, a few pieces of metal aren’t going to stop him.

When she comes out, clean and clad in her fuzziest pyjamas, he is waiting outside, face unreadable. “Doc says you should get some rest.”

“I’m not tired,” she declares, steadfastly ignoring her drooping eyelids.

“Liar.”

Darcy stiffens until she catches the sympathy in his gaze. She exhales slowly, shoulders sagging. “I don’t want to close my eyes,” she admits, lowering herself onto the bed. Bucky hovers, obviously wanting to help but casting glances at the recently-vacated bathroom.

“Just go,” Darcy orders, flapping a hand at him. “I’m not going anywhere and the tac suit looks better than it smells.”

A ghost of a smirk darts across his face before he obeys. She waits until he shuts the door between them before patting her ribs gingerly. They hurt, but she’s had worse. If she’s remembering right, they should heal on their own in a week or two. She can’t see it in this light, but she can feel the gigantic bruise already forming, purple crisscrossed with angry red lines.

She’s still inspecting her side when Bucky steps out of the bathroom, nothing but a towel wrapped around his waist. Backlit by the bright halogens, he looks like every example of male temptation the trainers warned them about. Mouth dry, she can only watch as he crosses the room to the wardrobe where the stash of spare clothes is kept.

“You’re still awake,” he notes when he reappears, dressed once more.

She shrugs, wincing when the action tugs at her ribs. “Like I said.”

Bucky disappears into the wardrobe again, re-emerging with a folded blanket that he shakes out and, his movements gentle, wraps it around her until she resembles a dumpling, only fluffier. Once done, he settles on the bed beside her, forearms braced on his thighs.

“Where did you learn that?” she wonders aloud, clutching the blanket close. It was hardly a skill taught at the Red Room.

He shrugs awkwardly. “I don’t remember.”

Darcy narrows her eyes at him. “I don’t buy that. How do you forget learning the art of folding a blanket burrito? And speaking of remembering, how could you not know if it was you who killed Stark’s parents?”

His forehead wrinkles. “They let you remember your missions?”

She starts to reply in the affirmative when she picks up on his phrasing. “They make you forget?”

“It’s protocol,” he replies automatically. “Debriefing after every mission.”

 _Debrief._ That’s where that man sent Anya. “Bucky,” she says slowly. “What debriefing mean to you, exactly?”

A shudder runs through him. “The chair. They don’t put you in the chair?”

“No, what does the chair do?” She was starting to have the feeling that she’d missed something big.

“It _hurts_ ,” Bucky mumbles, almost to himself. “It hurts, and then you forget.”

Darcy worms one hand out of her blanket burrito and places it in Bucky’s. His hand closes over hers with near-painful force as more shudders wrack his frame. “So you forget everything?” she asks, unable to help herself, desperate to know.

Bucky draws a deep, shuddering breath. “Yes. Sometimes I remember if it’s been a while. Then I have to debrief again.” He looks down at their entwined hands. “They didn’t hurt you?”

A thin smile makes its way onto her face. “Oh, they hurt us plenty. But I don’t remember anything like the chair. I don’t think they needed it for us. We didn’t have anything they needed us to forget. If Rogers is right about who he thinks you are, you have plenty.”

“I don’t remember him,” Bucky insists. “I don’t. I — Your sister. Anya.”

Darcy flinches. “They would've sent her to the chair, wouldn’t they?”

“Most likely.”

Darcy opens her mouth to answer but a yawn splits her face instead. He looks over at her, concerned. “You should sleep. Why don’t you want to sleep?”

“Because then I’ll remember,” Darcy whispers, horribly aware of the irony. The one who can’t remember but wants to, despite his protests to the contrary, and the one who remembers it all too well. “I told you. I don’t sleep well with anyone moving around. Too strong a survival instinct.”

“I’ll stay right here,” he promises, looping their linked hands over her head so she is nestled against his side, head tucked below his collarbone. “I’ll keep watch. I don’t need much sleep.”

Darcy wants to protest that she’s fine, that she’s coped well enough these last few years on her own, but she doesn’t want to just cope anymore. They’ll have to get to the bottom of his missing memories, of her missing sister, but those are problems for later. For the first time in far too long she’s warm and clean and safe, and so she curls her feet up under her and lets her eyes drift closed.

* * *

She wakes slowly, head pillowed on Bucky’s chest. She’d kicked her way free of the blanket sometime during the night so it lies only loosely over her. Her left hand is still holding his right, and his other is stroking her hair. It would all be very relaxing if it weren’t for that infernal chiming.

“Shut up, Friday,” she mutters.

The AI doesn’t bother apologising this time. “Oh, you’re finally awake,” Tony says over the intercom, obnoxiously cheerful. “I’ve been going through the data dump Clint pulled before he crashed their system and I think you’re going to want to see this.”


	8. One Chance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Cause I'm too young to call it a day_   
>  _And I'm too old to make anymore mistakes_

Stark starts talking almost before they get through the door, his tone sharp and his gaze hyper-focussed. “I think they found another of your sisters. Is it the one who killed my parents?”

Darcy blinks in surprise. Stark’s wild-eyed and nearly vibrating with energy, but at least he’s not trying to kill her. Discreetly, she returns her knife to its sheath and looks around. Stark’s main 3D display has been converted to a world map covered in a multitude of virtual pins. “What the hell is this?”

“It’s the Red Room’s progress on tracking you down,” Stark says. “Try and keep up, would you?”

Though most of the pins are blue, one is red and sits somewhere in Australia. Darcy steps forward and taps it lightly. It expands to reveal Anya’s photo shoot, the words ‘Asset retrieved’ blinking along the bottom. Another touch minimises it again. There’s another red pin located in New York — that, she doesn’t need to see. She turns to Stark as Bucky munches on one of the pastries they thought to collect from the common kitchen on the way.

Stark huffs in annoyance at her raised eyebrows. “They had some rudimentary facial recognition software trawling the net, okay? These are the ones it identified. Their files indicate they are in the process of tracking them down one by one. I had Friday run a more detailed scan of their results using their parameters and one jumped out.” He jabs a finger at a green pin in New Zealand and another photo magnifies.

It is a head shot, professionally taken from the looks of it. The young woman looks confident, competent, and heart-achingly familiar, even though her hair is darker than Darcy remembers.

“It’s one of the Lynxes,” Tony continues. “I need you to tell me which one.”

“Why would I do that?” Darcy counters, minimising the photo once more, though not without stealing one more look. “Why would I betray my sister to you? I can’t imagine you want to offer her the Maria Stark Foundation scholarship.”

“I-” For a second, Stark looks lost, as if the question hadn’t occurred to him, but then his face hardens. “She needs to face justice!”

Darcy snorts. “For what? For killing your parents? Again with the lack of proof, Stark. All you have is an ancient file that doesn’t even call her by name.”

“She’s still a murderer.”

“If you’re going to use that logic, so am I.”

Stark’s expression turns crafty. “Maybe I should turn you in myself, then.”

Darcy waves the idea away like a particularly irritating fly, feigning an indifference she doesn’t feel. “Go ahead. But I am not trading my hard-won freedom for that of my sisters’ and you are not using me to get close to them.” She smiles, knows there’s no happiness in the expression. “Besides, I’d wager they’d find it hard to hold me.”

“Us.”

She smiles up at Bucky’s gruff correction, flicks a flake of pastry off his chin. “No, you need to stay in the shadows so you can bust me out. The Lynx isn’t even a footnote in the annals of history, they’ll underestimate me. The Winter Solder? Not so much.”

“Or,” Bucky looms over Stark, forcing the short inventor to look up. “You could leave us alone and we’ll be on our way.”

“We still need to rescue Anya,” Darcy reminds him. “Even more after what we talked about last night.”

“Rescue her?” Stark asks. “Barton said she betrayed you back there. We saw her evacuate the training compound with the rest of them. Doesn’t seem like she wants or needs rescuing.”

Darcy and Bucky shudder in unison. “Brainwashing,” Darcy states flatly, and Stark’s eyes narrow.

“Is this just another trick to play on my sympathies? You’ve used the only card you held — I know who killed my parents now.”

“It’s no trick,” Darcy assures him. “But if a brainwashed assassin trained and controlled by a foreign secret service is not enough motivation to act in and of itself, I guess we know what you really think of the greater good. Guess we’re not so far from the weapons manufacturer after all.”

She knows who she was working for - like any good asset, she did her research. All of it indicated Tony Stark truly regretted that period in his company’s not-too-ancient history. Controlling her face carefully, she feels a surge of satisfaction as Stark looks pained, then resigned.

“Fine. I won’t turn her in — but I still want to talk to her, and soon. For all we know, the Red Room are tracking her down as we speak. The virus I wrote would have wiped this from their system but I don’t know what type of backups they kept.”

Darcy nods. “Let us know when the quinjet leaves.”

“What makes you think we’re letting you in on this? You’ve already had one sister beat you up.”

“Believe it or not, Stark, I care about my sisters and we both don’t want the Red Room to get their hands on any of them. At least let me talk to her first.”

“Fine. But if this one beats you up too, don’t come running to my medic for help.”

“Believe me, I won’t,” Darcy says, hoping against hope it wouldn’t come to that.

* * *

A young couple step into the offices of a mid-level law office. His dark brown hair is pulled into a loose bun, hers curls loose around a face topped with heavy glasses. “We’re here to see Ms Williams,” she says to the receptionist. “James and Darcy Lewis?”

The receptionist scrolls through the calendar on his computer and nods. “She’s ready for you. Second office on the right?”

They thank him and cross the office floor, past the pod of law clerks tapping away at their computers. If he stays a half step behind her and keeps a wary eye on their surroundings, the clerks are too busy researching to notice. Darcy stops at the appropriate door and notes the mismatched fading underneath the nameplate. Tapping on the door, they receive a “come in” from inside.

The woman inside stands up to greet them as they enter. She looks near-identical to the photo Stark found, though the welcoming smile she wears drops off her face, to be replaced with wide, shocked eyes.

“Darya?”

Bucky shuts the door behind them as Darcy offers up a shy smile. “Hey, Katya.”

“What are you doing here?” Katya demands, dropping into Russian.

“Nice to see you too,” Darcy says in the same language.

“I mean it! The separation was your idea. ‘We’ll be safer if we never see each other again.’ What happened to that?”

Darcy shrugs. “Plans change. I met my soulmate, ended up coming clean to the Avengers.”

Katya fixes a bright, fake smile onto her face and Darcy abruptly remembers Katya is unmarked. “Nice to meet you,” Katya says to Bucky, in flawless, unaccented English.  “I’m sorry you’ve been dragged into this.”

“Not a problem,” Bucky replies amiably, and Katya switches her focus back to Darcy.

“The Avengers? You thought Romanova would help you? She never lifted a finger to help us before.”

“To be fair, she didn’t know we existed. We disappeared pretty effectively.”

“Then why are you here?” Katya hisses. “We were out! I have a life here and you bring the Avengers to my doorstep?” She glances out her window as if expecting Iron Man to be hovering outside.

“We have a problem,” Darcy begins, but Katya shakes her head, throwing her hands up in the air.

“I don’t care! You see that?” She points to a set of certificates on her wall. “That is my law degree! Five and a half years studying law and history. Do you know how hard it is to get into law school when you never finished high school?”

“…No, but-”

“Scrap that, when you never attended school at all, let alone in the right country? I had to falsify thirteen years of schooling just to get into university! And next to my degree? That’s the certificate I got for busting my ass as a clerk and getting my profs. I’m a certified immigration lawyer, now, Darya. I help people start new lives, not end them! I have a photo on the website! So unless you and your soulmate need some help applying for a visa, you can take your problem and go back to the Avengers!”

There is a knock on the door. “Everything okay in there, Katie?”

Katya smooths down her hair and steps around Bucky to open the door wide. “Not at all, Gav. These two just wanted to sue for personal injury, didn’t seem to get that’s not how things work around here. Americans, right?”

There is a ripple of laughter from around the room. Katya looks at Darcy meaningfully, tilts her head towards the exit. “Nice to meet you, Mrs Lewis, Mr Lewis, but I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

Darcy doesn’t need to fake her disappointment, not in front of all these people, but she can’t leave without giving some type of warning. “You might end up Red,” she says as she passes her sister. “I hear that’s going around.”

Katya’s smile doesn’t falter. “I’ll take my chances, thanks.”

“If you change your mind, we’re at the Intercontinental Hotel. Room 317.”

“Absolutely. Have a nice day.”

As they reach the receptionist’s desk, Darcy tries one more time. “And if you meet an Anya, don’t trust her.”

Katya freezes for the slightest second. Her lips part to ask more, but the clerks are watching with interest. Lips firming into a thin smile, she ushers Darcy and Bucky from the office.

Defeat bitter in her mouth, Darcy slumps against Bucky, who slips an arm around her waist. “We did what we could,” he murmurs into her hair.

“She didn’t even hear us out,” Darcy complains. “I don’t remember her being this stubborn.”

“You said she liked her plans, right? You did just upend several of hers. At least she knows to be vigilant.”

“At least there’s that.”

* * *

“So this was never the one who killed my parents?”

“I never said it was, Stark.” Darcy shoots a glare at Romanova. “How have you not killed any of these idiots yet?”

Romanova smirks. “Haven’t you heard? I’m one of the good guys now. Good guys tend to look down on casual murder.” She inspects her nails, rubbing an imaginary smudge off one before adding “I can’t say I haven’t been tempted, though.”

“As if you could,” Stark snorts, leaning back on his chair and kicking his feet onto the table. Every head in the room turns to him in disbelief. “Listen, I’m not knocking you, Romanoff,” he says defensively. “But all I hear from this one is talk, talk, talk. Seems like the Red Room got soft on their recruits after you left.”

Darcy stalks towards him, ice filling her veins. “Soft?” she hisses. “You want to talk to me about soft, Tony Stark? You grew up in luxury — even in the Red Room, we heard of Howard Stark and Stark Industries, American capitalists profiting off the blood of innocents. They killed your parents when you were 21? Boo hoo, they killed mine when I was five, so I would grow up in the ‘orphanage’. I first shot a gun at seven, killed a man at ten. When we were eight, they broke our right arms so we would learn to shoot with our left. I can hold a plié for six hours because Trainer Petrova would strap us for every inch of deviation. Every nice thing I had was at the expense of one of my sisters — a ribbon for knocking Clara unconscious, an extra portion of dinner for coming first in the survival exercise as Iliana froze to death outside. We followed orders because it was all we were ever taught to do because punishment could mean being target practice the next day. Yes, I’ve killed people, and so have all my sisters. But we did it to survive and we were damn good at it, too. So go ahead and judge from your ivory tower, but don’t be surprised when your arrogance comes back to haunt you. It’s no more than you deserve.”

Stark’s eyes grow wider and wider during her rant. As she tails off, it’s clear he has no idea what to say. Tired of the whole thing, Darcy stomps through to the adjoining suite. Slamming the door behind her, she comes to an abrupt halt when she sees Steve Rogers slumped on the sofa, head in his hands. He looks up at her entrance and it takes all she has to repress a sigh at the kicked-puppy look on his face. “Miss Lewis? Uh, Darcy?”

“What now?” she demands.

“I wanted to apologise. For what I said before, and how I acted. It was unconscionably rude and presumptuous. It all took me by surprise, that’s all.”

“Apology accepted,” Darcy grinds out. When he doesn’t make to move, she sighs. “What else?”

“He won’t talk to me.”

She doesn’t need to ask who he’s talking about, not with the way he stares at their closed bedroom door. “Why would he?”

“Because I’m his friend! We grew up together, back in Brooklyn.”

“Correction: you _were_ his friend before they went and screwed with his head. For the last 70 years, you’ve been the living embodiment of the enemy.” Seeing his woebegone face, she softens. “Look, it took all of us by surprise. Give him some time and space.”

He nods, brightening somewhat, and she shakes her head at the oddity of acting as agony aunt to Captain America. She crosses to the bedroom door, finds it locked. Rattling the handle, she calls “It’s me! Let me in, would you?”

The door opens so suddenly, she nearly falls into Bucky, who pulls her inside and shuts the door again behind her. “Heard you talking to Steve,” he mutters, arms closing around her protectively.

“Oh, it’s Steve now, is it?” she teases.

“I guess it is. Huh.”

“Does this mean you’re remembering more?”

He pulls away slightly to look down at her, thoughtful. “I don’t know. It comes and goes. What was the yelling?”

“You heard that from here?” At his nod, she sighs. “Just Stark being Stark.”

“Asshole.”

“No argument from me on that front. Maybe he’ll get a clue, now.”

“Good luck with that.”

* * *

Pepper drags Tony back to America for an SI board meeting after two days and Steve is recalled for a SHIELD mission soon after. Before long, it is just Barton and Romanova left in New Zealand with them.

“It’s pretty much a holiday,” Barton confides, munching a cheese scone from a cafe down the road. “The moment I step back onto American soil, Fury will have something for me to do that will no doubt be both boring and dangerous. I like babysitting duty much better.”

Bucky and Darcy, both older than him, share a glance and snort in unison.

“Why are we still here, anyway?” he asks, brushing crumbs off his lap. “I get that me and Tasha need to watch you, but you’ve tried to talk to this girl on four separate occasions and she’s avoided you each time.”

“I can’t just leave her,” Darcy says, though the words sound flat, even to her ears.

“Stark paid up until the end of the week,” Romanova informs them from her spot in the corner. “After that, if there has been no significant developments, I say we go.”

Reluctantly, Darcy nods. It seems the Red Room weren’t coming for Katya after all.

* * *

The night before they are set to leave, Darcy sleeps badly. Despite Bucky’s presence sleeping soundly beside her, she tosses and turns. When she finally falls asleep, the nightmares come thick and fast until something jolts her awake. Knife in hand, she finds herself on her feet, blinking into the dark.

“What is it?” Bucky asks from beside her, his silhouette a defensive pose that mirrors her own.

Darcy creeps over to the window and peers out. Downtown, something is burning, billows of smoke obscuring the lights of the city. Even as she looks, sirens begin to wail in the distance.

“I think there’s been an explosion.”

Bucky joins her at the window. “Is that Katya’s office?”

Heart pounding in her chest, Darcy dresses quickly, knives slotting into place like old friends. Her thighs feel light without her pistols strapped to them, but it hadn’t seemed worth the hassle to get them authorised through New Zealand’s strict gun laws.

She is pulling her hair into a ponytail when there is a knock at the door to the apartment. Peering through the peephole, she breathes a sigh of relief — then remembers Anya.

“Cover me,” she hisses to Barton and Romanova as they emerge from their own room, similarly clad. The others spread out around the lounge and take cover behind the furniture as Darcy opens the door.

Katya stands there in, sooty and smelling of smoke. There is a rapidly forming bruise on one cheek and her bottom lip is split and swollen. “You were right,” she admits.

“Right about what?” Darcy asks, studying her sister for any signs of coercion.

“Everything, all right? Now let me in. I swiped an access card to get up here and I don’t know when they will notice it gone.”

There’s something off about her posture, though she has none of that unnatural stiltedness Anya was exhibiting. Still, Darcy signals for the others to remain behind cover before opening the door wider. She ushers her sister in, then checks the hallway behind her for signs of pursuit. Seeing none, she closes the door and turns to face her sister. “What happened?”

“Anya just blew up my office.”

“We did try and warn you,” Bucky reminds her, crossing the room to stand with Darcy. “Several times. You didn’t want to listen.”

“Because I like my life! I’m tired of running and hiding and changing my name.”

Darcy thinks back, to years of new names and new faces, memorising a new backstory in case anyone ever asked, and to more recently, choosing to stay Darcy Lewis even when it was clear they had found her. “Tell me about it. At least you’re alive, right?”

“Yeah, but my career is in ruins. The firm was barely breaking even; the senior partner made it clear to me that if things took a turn for the worse, I would be the first to go.” She laughs, short and bitter. “I suppose this would qualify. After all, it is my fault.”

Darcy sighs and turns to flick the light on. “What actually happened?”

There is a strangled gasp from behind her and she spins, dropping into a crouch. Katya’s eyes are fixed on Bucky’s arm and one hand is raised as if to ward him off. “ _Zimniy Soldat,”_ she breathes, backing away from them. “Darya, what have you done?”

Darcy straightens, replaces her knives back in her sheaths. “I told you, Katya, I found my soulmate. Good thing I did, otherwise I’d be dead by now.” She goes to loosen her tac vest, realises it won’t convince her sister of anything. She nudges Bucky instead. “Take off your top.”

He turns to her, startled. “What?”

“Katya knows my handwriting. Take off your top.”

He does not look amused. “I’m not removing protective gear in the presence of a potential threat.”

“But if she sees your soulmark…?”

“That won’t help. If things had turned out differently with Anya, we could both be loyal minions of the Motherland once more.”

“The Avengers,” Katya says, looking between the two of them. “You said you were with the Avengers. Prove it.”

“’With’ is overstating things a bit,” Clint says from behind Katya, and she jumps nearly a foot into the air.

Darcy snorts. “That’s not what you said when I gave you cookies yesterday.”

“You must have done something to those. Nothing good can smell that heavenly.” His eyes sharpen as they rake over Katya. “What’s wrong with your arm?”

Darcy takes another look and hisses out a sharp breath, recognising the way Katya is holding herself. “It’s broken, isn’t it? What’d you do, get caught in a headlock?”

Katya nods, fine lines at the corners of her mouth. “She should’ve remembered I knew how to break that hold. What happened to her?”

Darcy opens her mouth to answer but Romanova beats her to it.

“We should get moving. This location may be compromised if you were followed. Do you have ID? Under a new name?”

“Yes, but it’s at my flat…”

Romanova sighs. “We’ll get it. Lewis, get her cleaned up and ready to move. We’ll meet you at the airport.”

Katya gives them her address and they disappear out the door. Bucky stands guard as Darcy sets Katya’s arm with a splint and some bandages, then Katya washes up in the bathroom as Darcy fetches some makeup to cover her bruises.

“Family emergency,” Darcy tells the night manager, dropping the keycards on his desk. Before he has a chance to question them further, they hustle through the main doors and vanish into the night.


	9. We Got Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The return to the Tower and some interludes thereafter in which everyone needs a hug
> 
> _We've got questions that don't have answers_   
>  _We tell our tales and we talk for hours_   
>  _Ain't that something you hold on to?_

Safely aboard the private jet, Bucky joins Clint in the cockpit as the Red Room refugees cluster in the main cabin. It’s a measure of trust that he leaves Darcy’s side at all, but days spent surveilling Katya has paved the way for a tentative friendship of sorts between the two snipers.

Natalia takes charge of Katya’s hair, dying and styling it into messy waves, not unlike Darcy’s own. As she does, Katya recounts the events that brought her to their hotel.

_She is working late, trying to finish a submission to Immigration New Zealand. Their client will be deported in two weeks unless she can get the Minister to grant a visa under section 61. She’s been jumpy ever since Darya’s reappearance, shunning her office at night for one of the workstations in the middle of the office, where a lighted office will not present her as an easy target to anyone outside. Emailing the letter at last, she hears footsteps - odd, as the cleaners have come and gone, tutting at her workaholic habits. Even the law clerks have left, home to study for their upcoming exam or perhaps to hit the town._

_A woman steps into the room, skinny and blonde with dark circles underneath her eyes. “Katya? Is that you?”_

_She stills, pushing herself away from the desk and standing, Darya’s warning ringing in her mind. “Anya, what are you doing here?”_

_“I’ve come to bring you home.”_

_“I’ve made a new home; we didn’t like our old one, remember? That’s why we left.”_

_“You have to come home,” Anya insists, and there’s something eerie about the way she repeats herself._

_“I have a life here, I can’t leave.”_

_More footsteps, as men in black uniforms emerge from the darkness from behind her sister. “Set the charges,” one says. “The gas line is behind this wall.”_

_“What are you doing?” Katya demands._

_“Some things have to be destroyed to be made stronger,” Anya says. “Destroy this old life and come home.”_

_The first man to approach her with cuffs dies as a hairpin slashes across throat; the next, his larynx crushed from a well-aimed kick. They fall back. “Neutralise her,” orders their leader, and Anya stalks forward._

_It was a poor choice of ambush location. Katya has worked in this office for months, long enough to memorise the distance between desks and where the accountant keeps her stapler. She sends one office chair rolling into Anya’s path, uses the window it creates to use a decorative thermometer as a club on a nearby goon. Papers fly as she tackles Anya into a cabinet, which tips, trapping another of the watching men. Anya’s knee hits her in the face as she reaches for the stapler. Fighting through the burst of pain, she smashes it into Anya’s temple, but not hard enough to knock her out, unwilling to fight her sister with lethal force. Anya seems to have no such compulsion and she soon finds herself in a headlock, a faceless goon stepping forward with an ominous syringe._

_“The charges are set,” another man reports, brandishing a detonator, and Katya drops to one knee and twists, sending Anya over her head and hearing her own arm snap in the process. Grabbing the detonator and ignoring the pain in her arm, she hurtles away from the conventional exit into her office. She’s loosened the window appropriately; now, she smashes through it and onto the building next door in a shower of glass._

_Shaking shards out of her hair, she is hit from the side and falls heavily, onto the detonator, hot pokers of pain stabbing up her bad arm. Her office explodes in a rush of heat and sound, providing enough of a distraction to elbow Anya in the throat and wiggle free. From there, she takes the second of five preplanned escape routes down to street level. Briefly, she considers returning to her apartment, but it is sure to be under surveillance and she has no desire to put her flatmates into the line of fire. She is woefully unprepared to fight and cannot flee: the isolation that made New Zealand so successful a hiding place now works against her. There’s no easy way to leave the country — Darya’s offer may be her only hope. She hopes her sister is still there._

“We were about to leave,” Darcy tells her, inspecting her newest passport and declaring it sufficient. “Nice to meet you, Ms Hunter.”

Katya closes her eyes, lips moving soundlessly as she internalises her new name. They pop open and she stares at Darcy, narrow-eyed. “That’s what happened to me. What happened to Anya? And how did you join the Avengers?”

“We did not ‘join’ the Avengers,” Darcy says. “But as for the rest - well, it’s a long story.”

“It’s a long flight,” comments Natalia, wiping the excess dye off her hands. “It’s probably more interesting than whatever movie Clint decides to queue up.”

* * *

On arrival, Friday directs them to the conference room that Darcy is growing to hate. She zones out as Tony interrogates her sister, isn’t surprised when Katya is assigned to share their suite. Their lives fall into some sort of holding pattern, alternating between their rooms, the gym floor, and the common floor.

Steve arrives back at the Tower two days after they do. Taking Darcy’s advice, he gives Bucky space; only going to the common room when Friday informs him that they are in their own suite. Stepping out of the elevator, he stops short at the sight of Darcy chopping onions to some modern pop song piped through the speakers. Coming closer, he realises it’s not Darcy, though there are superficial similarities. If Friday is playing her music, though, she must be cleared to be here.

He is still cataloguing the differences - taller, slimmer - when her hands still and he realises she has noticed his presence. Spinning to face him, she watches with suspicion as he approaches. He holds his hands open, empty, as he calls Friday to turn the music down.

“You’re Captain America.”

Steve makes a face. “I prefer Steve, most of the time. Who are you?”

“My name is Katya,” she tells him. “I’m Dary- Darcy’s sister. Stark okayed my presence here.”

“I thought you were set on staying in New Zealand. What happened?”

She stiffens, fingers still curled around the knife in her hand. “Anya blew up my office.”

“So?”

“With my office, she also blew up any chance I had at a normal life. I am out of practice and was without resources. I know when to cut and run.” Each word is clipped, precise, flung from her mouth with distaste to land between them.

In the awkward silence, he casts about for a different topic of conversation. “What are you making?”

The eye roll she gives him further cements her identity. He’s seen it too many times from Darcy over the short time they’ve known each other. “Dinner,” she replies and turns back to her chopping board.

Flushing at the obvious dismissal, he grabs a protein shake from the fridge and retreats to his rooms.

* * *

Clint whistles tunelessly as he checks the fletching on his arrows. ”What do you think of the new kid?”

Tasha doesn’t look up from the game on her cell phone. “The one who is almost certainly a decade older than you?” She bats the cushion he throws at her aside, still focussed on her game.

“Tasha,” he whines, and she relents.

“Less than ideal common sense, given she ignored Lewis’s warning, but clever and stubborn enough to make it through law school. If she was telling the truth about what happened to her office, she is a skilled fighter.”

“And if she isn’t? Telling the truth, that is.”

“Then we’ve let a viper into our midst.”

“Says the Black Widow, ironically.”

The cushion makes a return journey with considerably more force.

* * *

Thor has once again gone back to Asgard and both Clint and Natasha have been assigned to some hush-hush mission overseas. The rogue Russian assassins are settling in nicely, though Steve is still using Friday to avoid them. Life at the Tower has quietened down, so Pepper enjoys the return to a more mundane schedule.

 A light knock sounds at the door. “Come in,” Pepper calls, minimising the file in front of her.

The woman who steps inside is quite possibly the plainest person Pepper had ever seen. Mousy brown hair with a blunt fringe falls around a face that can only be described as unremarkable, crowned with large wire-rimmed glasses.

“Ms De Santos? Please take a seat.” Pepper steeples her fingers in front of her, unsure how to proceed. She decides to go with bluntness. “I have a bit of a problem, Ms De Santos. Your appointment only appeared in my calendar a few hours ago when I normally require two days’ notice. Furthermore, there are no records of a Julia De Santos that match your description, well, anywhere. Would you care to explain?”

Her visitor closes her eyes, exhales heavily. When she meets Pepper’s gaze, her face and voice are expressionless but heavily accented. “I wish to speak with the Black Widow. Failing that, Captain America will do.”

Pepper’s jaw snaps shut. “You would be Yulia, then?”

Slowly, the woman in front of her nods.

* * *

“That’s her, then? The one who killed my parents?”

Darcy looks at the holo-screen Tony has magnified and nods. Yulia sits cross-legged in the middle of the Hulk containment room. Her back is straight and her face blank, but the twitching of her fingers betrays her nervousness. “I want to talk to her.”

“Not going to happen, Sunshine,” Tony says, scowling, though his words lack force. “You’re not telling her how to escape from this one.”

“She gave herself up,” Steve argues. “We had no leads on her position; she walked in here and gave herself up. It must be a trap.”

“We could talk to her,” Katya offers. “We could tell something was wrong with Anya when we spoke to her; surely Yulia would be the same.”

Steve nods, turns to Tony. “Is there an intercom system?”

“Only from outside the module. Less chance of Bruce breaking anything important.”

When they all rise to their feet, Steve looks around. “I’m the one who talks to her, understand? The rest of you are too emotionally invested, and if she’s been ordered to kill you, speaking to her may set her off.” He holds their gazes until each one nods in agreement.

The trip down to Floor 75 is made in silence, though Darcy’s hand finds its way into Bucky’s. She stands shoulder to shoulder with Katya, looking into the module through the one-way glass. Tony is practically vibrating with impatience but he stands away from the control panel. Steve steps forward and presses the button Tony indicates.

“Yulia, this is Steve Rogers speaking.”

Yulia’s fingers still, then start up again. “Captain America, right? Took you long enough. I suppose patriotism doesn’t have to be punctual.” She sounds almost bored.

Confused, Steve turns to Darcy and Katya. “She doesn’t sound brainwashed. Why would she give herself up?”

“Have you tried asking her?”

Before he can, Yulia speaks up again. “What are you waiting for? Get on with it.”

“Get on with what?”

“Killing me.”

The observers exchange shocked glances. Finally, Steve reaches out to the intercom again. “Wh-why would we kill you?”

“Six months ago, Anna Matthews dies in a house fire that also claims the lives of her three housemates. Local police suspect the fire was set but have no suspects. Last month, Darcy Lewis disappears — her neighbours filed a report but I suppose that was easy enough to cover up, working for Stark as she did. Two weeks ago, Tony Stark is inexplicably seen wandering the streets of Wellington. Five days after that, there is an explosion that claims the life of Kate -”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Steve asks, cutting her off.

“Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence, three times is enemy action,” she recites.

“That may be,” Steve agrees. “But we’re not the enemy.”

Her soft snort is loud in the silence that follows.

“Her reasoning is understandable, though her conclusion is erroneous,” Katya murmurs. “Still, her actions are inexplicable, unless…”

Darcy thinks through the facts Yulia presented, comes to the only sensible answer. “She’s protecting someone.” Katya nods in agreement.

“Who are you protecting?” Steve asks.

Yulia’s face tightens, some emotion flicking across it too quickly to catch. “No-one.”

“Lie,” Darcy and Katya chorus under their breath.

“It won’t be too hard to track them down,” Steve threatens, though in truth he has no idea if Stark has that capability. “After all, we found your sisters.”

Yulia’s face twists and she draws in a shaky breath, eyes filled with pain. “And yet you claim to not be the enemy. I suppose your heroism only applies for Americans. Perhaps the Trainers were right after all.”

Katya shoots Steve a venomous glare, leaves Darcy’s side to push past him to the control panel. “Don’t listen to him, Yulechka. We’re not dead and he can take very little of the credit.” What little colour there is drains from Yulia’s face and Katya starts jabbing at the control panel in front of her.

“What are you doing?” Steve demands, dragging her away.

“Letting her out,” she snarls, struggling against his grip on her good arm. “You can see she’s not brainwashed, so let her out!”

“She’s not going anywhere,” Tony says. “But you can join her in there if you want.”

Darcy elbows Bucky in the side. “Remember what I said about giving myself up?” For a moment, he stares at her blankly, then nods as the memory slots into place.

“Let us in,” she says simply.

Tony stares at her, then at Katya, who kicks backwards and upwards. Steve makes a soft _oof_ and folds in half, and she shakes her arm free of his grasp. “Your call,” he shrugs, pushing a few buttons. The door slides open and they step inside.

For a moment, Yulia stares at them in silence and Darcy is worried they made the wrong choice, but it’s like a dam breaking and suddenly they are hugging and crying and laughing. Yulia pulls away, looks between them. “Where’s Anya?” she asks, and the bubble bursts.

“About that…” Darcy says. “We need to talk.”

* * *

”I woulda thought you’d be in there, watching your girl’s back.”

Bucky shrugs, eyes never leaving the three women as they talk. “There is one entrance to that room and I am guarding it. Inside, I am as trapped as she is. Outside, I have access to the control panel and know how to unlock the room should they require an exit.”

“You’ll have to go through me,” Tony snaps, spinning to face him. Bucky looks down at him, expression neutral. Abruptly, Tony realises he is without his suit. He doesn’t quite deflate, but a little of the bravado evaporates.

“Buck won’t do that,” Steve says, and both men turn to stare at him in disbelief.

“Russian assassin,” Tony says, jabbing a finger at him. “Soulmate of one of the assassins who killed my parents.”

“I’m not the man you think I am,” Bucky adds, after a pause long enough that he is certainly not agreeing with Tony.

“Yes, you are,” Steve protests. “You just need to remember him.”

“What if I can’t?” Bucky asks, bluntly. “What if they burnt him out of me and all that is left is his face?”

Steve swallows. Hard. “I know that’s not true. I know you remember me, even if you won’t admit it.

“I don’t know what I remember,” Bucky allows.

“That’s okay. I can wait.” Steve sets his jaw in a way that the old Bucky would recognise - and perhaps the new one does too. He shrugs again, and there is silence but for the women’s conversation being piped over the intercom.

* * *

Yulia stares at her sisters in disbelief. “Brainwashing. Explosions. The Avengers. What happened to keeping a low profile?”

“You think that’s bad?” Katya says. “Guess who Darya’s soulmate is?”

Yulia groans. “Please, not Captain Tightpants.”

“Better,” Katya grins. “ _Zimniy Soldat._ ”

Yulia laughs. “Nice try, Katyusha. But I can tell when you’re —” she trails off. “You’re not lying.” Her gaze turns to Darcy. “Dashenka, you were supposed to be the sensible one!”

“I’m sorry?”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yeah, I’m really not.”

Yulia studies them carefully, gaze sharpening on the wrapping on Katya’s wrist. ”And you are free to leave at any time? Even though they know who we are?”

“Well, sort of. We don’t have anywhere to go and they’re helping us track Anya down. I don’t think I’ve left the Tower recently, but I’m 83% certain they’d let us out if I wanted.”

“I go on runs outside all the time,” Katya says. “Stop looking like that, Dashenka, I don’t need two arms to kill a mugger.”

“So if I wanted to, I could get up and leave? Then why are they keeping me in here?”

“Well, there’s the Anya thing. We didn’t know if you were brainwashed too, and this is an office building with some apartments on top. They don’t have any holding cells or anything.”

“What aren’t you saying?” Yulia demands, looking between them.

Darcy shifts uncomfortably. “There was a mission you did. December 16, 1991.”

Yulia purses her lips in thought. “Assassination and asset retrieval, wasn’t it? Just before that round of procedures?”

“Do you remember the target?”

“Howard and Maria —” Her eyes pop open and she looks around. “Oh.”

“Tony Stark is a little upset.”

“I- uh- that’s understandable. I’m not proud of what I did. Well, I am a little bit. It went like clockwork and it wasn’t an easy shot.”

“Do you even care?” Tony demands over the intercom. “They were my parents!”

Yulia doesn’t flinch. “It was them or us, Stark. The Red Room does not tolerate failure. I’m sorry for what I did, but I would make the same choice today as I did then. I don’t expect you to understand.” A resigned smile slips across her face and she sits down again. “I guess I’m not going home again after all.”

The door slides open. Tony stands in the doorway, looking far older than Darcy has ever seen him. “Get out,” he says softly, not looking at any of them.

Yulia stands, walks over to him, sisters at her back. “Stark…”

“Just go.”

Darcy and Katya follow her to the elevator. Darcy digs around in her pocket, finds the marker she kept on hand for when Jane had another stroke of genius. Grabbing Yulia’s arm, she scrawls her cell phone number down her forearm.

“Let me know you got home safe,” she murmurs. “I promise it won’t be traced.”

Yulia looks at her, nods. Darcy knows she will message her from a burner phone anyway.

The elevator whisks Yulia away and returns to take them to the common floor. Friday provides the security footage of Yulia exiting the lobby; Darcy and Katya watch in silence as she vanishes into the crowd.

The screen fades to black and Darcy looks around. There’s something indefinably different in the air — some agreement Bucky and Steve have come to when she wasn’t looking, some conclusion Tony has come to as they talked in Bruce’s cell.

“What happens now?” she asks, but no-one has an answer.


	10. A Lot to Learn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things go pear-shaped because that's how these things go.
> 
> _Love doesn't last by coincidence_   
>  _Choice makes all the difference_   
>  _And if that's the truth_   
>  _I've got a lot to learn_

Steve is exhausted as he makes his way to the common floor more from muscle memory than with conscious direction. His only thought is getting some food and crashing in his suite – there’s a tell-tale quiver in his bones that tells him that if he doesn’t get some protein soon, he’s going to pass out. There are downsides to his super-fast metabolism.

Three steps out of the elevator, he realises the common room is not empty. There is one brunette stirring some pot on the stove, another chopping vegetables with practised efficiency. Both stop to stare as he halts in the middle of the room.

“You look terrible,” Katya says flatly and returns to her chopping.

Darcy covers her laugh with an unconvincing cough, grabs one of a stack of bowls beside the stove. “Come and have something to eat.”

As he stares, she adds a spoonful of sour cream to the steaming bowl of stew. Once done, she pushes it to the other side of the counter, to a space in front of an empty bar stool. Katya has finished her chopping and is mixing her ingredients in a large bowl. She looks up, catches his eye. “If you keel over, we are not dragging you anywhere except out of the way.”

Darcy frowns at her sister, firing off a stream of disapproving Russian. Katya shrugs, adding another scoop of mayonnaise to her bowl and stirring some more. “You’ve already adopted _zimniy soldat_ , the Black Widow, and the archer. Why not add the walking flag?”

Darcy sighs, then her gaze flicks to past Steve to the elevator beyond. “I thought you were going to spend some time at the firing range?”

“Something came up,” Bucky says, striding past to take up a post by Darcy’s side.

“Heya Buck,” Steve says. Bucky graces him with a carefully blank nod of acknowledgement. Steve finds himself grinding his teeth. It’s like coming up against a brick wall, again and again. He wants to shake him, yell at him, make him remember, wipe the sympathy off Darcy’s face… he drops onto the indicated stool, pokes at the stew with his spoon. “What is this?”

“ _Zharkoye_ ,” Darcy says, covering the pot again. “Katya, is the salad ready yet?”

Katya picks a cube of something out of her bowl and pops it in her mouth, then nods. At Darcy’s look, she heaves a put-upon sigh and spoons some onto a small plate for him.

“Thank you,” he says, somewhat unsettled by their hospitality.

“Just eat,” Katya mutters. “Apparently Darcy has an innate need to feed people.” 

“And you like to eat, so it works out well.”

“Stupid enhanced metabolism.”

“Amen,” Steve mumbles through a mouthful of stew. It is really good – thick and flavourful, meat falling off the bone — and he finds himself near-inhaling it. Both women turn to look at him, gazes dropping to the nearly-finished food in front of him.

“Yours must really suck,” Darcy says sympathetically, ladling seconds into his bowl.

“It’s not all bad,” Steve says, feeling oddly defensive. “It’s just been a long day. With Thor off-world, I’m the heavy hitter on the team. We could really use another person or two on the ground.”

It takes a moment to sink in. When it does, the moment breaks. Katya straightens with a sniff. “We left for a reason, Rogers.”

Steve’s shoulders slump. “I’d hoped…”

“Well, you hoped wrong,” Bucky says.

Darcy looks indecisive. “If you really need help -”

“No,” Bucky interrupts. “You will not.”

Darcy fixes her soulmate with a steely glare. “Excuse me? You didn’t even let me finish.”

Eyes of storm-grey meet those of bright blue, and neither seems willing to blink

Steve stands, suddenly eager to get out of there. “Thank you for the meal.”

“I’ll get your dishes,” Katya offers unexpectedly, already gathering them up. She deposits them in the dishwasher as he backs towards the elevator, joins him in there as the doors slide closed.

* * *

Darcy waits until they are alone in the common room before rounding on her soulmate. “What the hell was that?”

“You were going to let your soft heart get in the way of your better judgement.”

“You had no idea what I was going to say! And if I wanted to help, you have no right at all to- to forbid me.”

Bucky steps forward, deliberately crowding her. “No right all all?”

She doesn’t back down, stares him down though he stands over a head over her. “None. You’re my soulmate, not my commanding officer.”

“I do not need to be either to see you are still recovering from a head injury and are out of practice; the risk is unacceptably high.”

“Well, I don’t see you volunteering. And he’s your friend! You barely even looked at him.”

“Oh, like Dr Foster is your friend?”

Darcy flinches. “That’s not fair. She won’t talk to me. Steve is desperate to connect with you and I know you remember him.”

“You do, do you?”

“Yeah, I do. You think no-one notices the way your accent changes when he’s in the room, how you always look surprised to find him taller than you?”

Bucky’s face closes off and he takes a step back. She mirrors his actions, steps forward. “I know you’ve searched them up. Jim Morita. DumDum Dugan. Peggy Carter…”

“Don’t push me,” he growls.

“Make me.”

His eyes narrow at her brazen challenge, their faces mere inches, then centimetres apart, then closer. When it happens, the kiss is furious, a tangle of teeth and tongues. Darcy bites his lip hard enough to draw blood and he pulls back with an oath. She takes the opportunity to push past him. "Don't," she says, pausing at the stairwell when he makes to follow. "Or one of us will say something we both will regret.”

* * *

Piles of paper lie around the room, weighed down with half-empty coffee mugs and takeout containers. A machine in the corner hums as the woman standing at it adjusts a dial. Indecipherable black handwriting slants over every surface. Darcy runs one finger over the writing; all that comes away is dust. Heaving a deep sigh, she grabs the nearest leaning tower of paper and begins to leaf through it.

The trash is bagged, the cups are emptied, and Darcy has sorted about half the notes by subject when a young man halts in the doorway. “Hey! What are you doing in here?”

“Tidying up,” Darcy says, skimming the page in from of her. She recognises about half the jargon — Einstein-Rosen Bridge it is. She may rag Jane with her apparent inability to remember scientific terms, but that’s only because it’s what Darcy Lewis would do.

“You can’t be in here,” he protests. “Dr Foster doesn’t like to be interrupted when she’s working.”

“Well, at least you’ve learnt that much.”

There is a squeal from the machine in the corner and both turn to see a hand extend in their direction. “I need to take some notes,” Jane says, still glued to the viewfinder.

Darcy’s replacement looks around, almost dares to disturb one of her neat piles until a well-aimed glare warns him off. “I need some paper,” he explains, taking the top page of the nearest unsorted pile. Both sides are covered with writing; to Darcy’s annoyance, they seem to be in different coloured pens. Great, different topics on one page.

Shaking her head, she stalks over to the stationery drawers and pulls out a stack of giant sticky notes and a pen. She slaps them into Jane’s grasping hand, waves off the distracted “great, thanks,” and goes back to her sorting.

“How did you know-”

“Same way I know never to give Jane permanent markers and the alcohol-based cleaner is under the sink for when she gets her hands on one anyway.”

“I knew that, but then we’d lose the notes!”

Darcy finds another pad of sticky notes, starts copying down the research that covers the walls. Jane’s handwriting deteriorates when tired, so it is easy enough to tell different pieces apart. “Grab the cleaner, I’m doing with the whiteboard.”

“How can you even read that?”

“Practice. Now get cleaning.”

* * *

When Jane looks up, her machine now decorated with sticky notes, she does a double take at the state of her lab. “Wow, it hasn’t been this tidy since -” Her eyes come to rest on Darcy and she tails off.

“Heya, boss-lady.”

“Wait, are you the previous assistant? The- ” he gulps nervously “- lying assassin spy girl?”

Darcy turns and gives him a slit-edged smile. “That would be me.”

He turns pale, nearly trips over his own feet in an effort to escape.

“What was that?” Jane demands. “He was the best one so far.”

Darcy raises an eyebrow. “Really? You have dark circles the size of my fist beneath your eyes.”

“Is that some sort of threat?”

She winces. “What? No! Poor choice of wording, okay? You haven’t been getting enough rest. And that top should not be loose on you! Friday, can you get our usual order from DeLuca’s?”

“Acknowledged, Miss Lewis.”

Jane drops into the nearest chair, now that is is no longer covered in paper. “What are you doing, Darcy? Or whatever you call yourself.”

“Darcy’s good. And I’m trying to do my job.”

“I thought I fired you.”

“Technically, you didn’t. You just stomped off.”

“Don’t you have — I dunno, spying to do? Sisters to rescue?”

“Maybe. But I wanted to look after my best friend, first.”

Jane’s mouth opens, then closes, then opens again. Finally, she droops. “You lied to me.”

“I did,” Darcy agrees. “And if I had to do it again, I would. Probably. The world I came from is messy and dangerous and it hurts. I wanted to leave it all behind me.” She allows herself the luxury of a short, bitter laugh. “Look at how well that turned out.”

Jane makes a face. “I just can’t believe it, you know?”

“Believe me, it is no less believable from the inside. Most of that is disbelief that we actually got out, but still. I was so happy before this whole soulmate-assassin-Avengers mess started.”

“Really? As my intern? You must have done some fascinating things.”

“Oh, I have,” Darcy agrees, “but swanning around Monaco is heaps less fun when you know it’s going to end with your shoe in someone’s throat.”

“Your shoe?”

“They’re called stilettos for a reason, Janey…”

* * *

It’s two days later when Steve appears at Darcy’s door. “I know it’s sudden,” he says, “but you mentioned you might be able to help. SHIELD are sending me on this mission and something about it feels off. I got permission to bring a consultant along — pretty sure they are expecting Nat, only she and Clint have disappeared.”

Darcy narrows her eyes. “Where’d they go?”

“Beats me. Could be middle of Iowa for all I know. They do this now and then.”

“What’s wrong with the mission?” Bucky asks, suddenly looming at Darcy’s side. They haven’t discussed their fight in the kitchen since — haven’t talked much at all.

Steve shuffles his feet in response, shifts uncomfortably. “I’m not sure, that’s what disturbs me. There’s a base of insurgents with hostages in the Carpathian Mountains and they can’t send the STRIKE team in. Something about an aeroplane?”

She thinks back. “I’ve heard about this. Ever since they downed a commercial airliner, it’s been this whole international incident and the UN has specifically banned national security agencies from getting involved.” She squints at him. “Why are you going?”

“SHIELD think there’s something more than insurgents going on. They seem too well organised; I was asked to accompany the peacekeeping team to the village they occupy.”

 Darcy makes a face. This is exactly why she didn’t want to be part of this whole hero business. But Steve was right. Something about these militants had struck her as wrong, and-

“Given the location, it might lead to your sister,” Steve offers.

She looks at Bucky, trying to read his expression, letting him read hers. He scowls. “You can’t be serious. I won’t be able to cover your back on a UN-led mission.”

“Don’t wrap me in cotton wool; I’ll suffocate." 

“I’m trying to keep you safe.”

Darcy rolls her eyes. “Safe was never an option for me.”

“Then how about alive?”

She shrugs.  “I managed well enough on my own.”

He wants to remind her that ended with his hand around her neck. Instead, another answer rises unbidden to his lips. “The thing is, you don’t have to.”

There’s a sharp inhalation from the man in front of them that both ignore.

“I can’t stop you, can I?”

Darcy reaches up, pats his cheek. The other hand spins a knife that wasn’t there a moment ago. “Sweetie, you could try.” She turns to Steve. “When do we leave?”

* * *

The UN Team Leader stares when Darcy strides off the jet behind Steve. “That’s not the Black Widow.”

“She was busy,” Darcy says, giving him a smile that shows far too many teeth. “Call me a cousin, of sorts.”

He shudders; behind him, one of his men crosses himself. Dismissing them as unimportant, she tunes into the briefing Steve is giving. He’d given her the rundown on the way to the staging point; it’s an odd feeling, being involved in the planning stages rather than simply being pointed at a target.

At the end of the briefing, Steve takes a breath, glances over at her. “One more thing.” She tenses up at he continues, “There have been unsubstantiated reports of a blonde woman among the insurgents. Be careful of her – she is far more dangerous than she looks. If possible, do not engage.”

The UN team look suspicious but they nod in acknowledgement. “Fall in,” their leader orders, and they file onto the troop transport that will get them close to the village.

Darcy falls into step beside Steve. “Unsubstantiated rumours? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“There’s nothing to tell. This was the best way to get them to keep an eye out, without having to explain the whole story.”

“You _lied_?”

Steve gives her an amused glance. “Why is that so shocking?”

She holds up a finger. “One moment, I’m just readjusting my world view.” How did she slip into the habit of seeing a potential threat — and current ally — in such one-dimensional terms? Bucky’s right — she is out of practice. A shiver runs down her spine.

This was a bad idea.

“I’m not that much of a boy scout,” Steve says, startling her out of her morbid reverie. He actually looks concerned for her, which is new.

“This would be so much easier if we found Anya’s soulmate,” she mutters.

Steve blinks at the _non-sequitur_. “What do you mean?”

“It was saying his words that stopped Bucky, you know? I was like, this close to passing out.” Noticing the curiosity of the soldiers around them, she crosses her arms and sits back for the rest of the ride.

* * *

The first part of the mission goes exactly as planned. They infiltrate the village, locate the hostages, and the UN troops go in as Steve makes a distraction three streets over. Darcy is content to keep an eye on things from afar until one guy tries to shoot Steve from the shadows beneath her perch, which is just _rude_. His shot goes wild as she drops onto his head, but it goes unnoticed in the general melee. She is all set to climb up again when the team radio crackles.

“Captain, the blonde woman is here. We’re already three men do-”

The transmission cuts off with a gurgle but Darcy is already moving.

It takes less than a moment to recognise it is indeed Anya, struggling with one of the remaining troops. Halting for a moment, Darcy studies her sister’s form. Her actions are smooth, to be sure, but almost _too_ carefully choreographed. The Anya that Darcy remembers would never pull off such a perfect combination — she would stop partway to throw something or to take advantage of nearby furniture.

With a burst of inspiration, she grabs a nearby jar and hurls it at Anya’s head, knocking her off balance. Her sister turns to this new threat, face still eerily blank until another jar hits her in the chin. A flicker of offended rage breaks through the mask, then disappears, and Darcy grins in triumph. The previous fight had gone against her because she had known she was fighting Anya, with all that entailed, had split her attention to be ready for whatever trick Anya would play. As her sister comes at her in a flurry of blows, she stops expecting the unexpected and just _fights_.

Block, punch, dodge, jump — then she spots a moment of opportunity. She catches the punch Anya throws, pulling her off balance, and slaps the Hulk-level sedative patch onto Anya’s neck as she stumbles past. Anya spins, kicks, and Darcy retaliates with a one-two punch and a roundhouse kick that sends Anya flying across the room. She gets up again, but wavers. Clutching at the wall, she slides back down again.

Darcy takes stock of the room, rubbing bruised knuckles absently. Several of the UN soldiers are staring, wide-eyed. Two of the men on the floor are stirring; the others will not be getting up again.

“Are the hostages safe?” she demands. Someone nods and she gestures around them. “Get these guys to the transport as well then. Her as well. If you have restraints, they may be a good idea.”

Steve radios that he is in the clear and she orders him to meet them at the pickup point. Perhaps she is overstepping, but the man she recognises as the commander is one of those who is not moving and no-one else is taking charge.

She is ushering them outside when a door across the room bursts open and men pour in. The UN troops hesitate, but all of them still standing bear a load. Sighing, Darcy shoves the soldier with Anya over his shoulder out the door and turns to face her new opponents.

They come at her in a rush, and her daggers dance death among them until one blade gets stuck and she must abandon it, leaving one side vulnerable. A heavy fist strikes a glancing blow above her eye, opening a cut and obscuring her vision. Deciding discretion is the better part of valour, she makes a break towards the doorway.

She almost makes it.

Her foot catches on something — someone, probably — and she stumbles, giving one attacker the time to come up on her blind side. She doesn’t see the fist that sends her spiralling into unconsciousness.

* * *

Her mouth tastes of cotton and antiseptic, her eyelids heavy with disuse. Her muscles have that odd flatness that she associates with enforced inaction.

“She’s awake, sir,” says a voice by her head. “Her brainwaves indicate that she is fully conscious.”

Cool fingers peel open one eyelid, shine a light straight into it and she cannot help the flinch that results. The hand retreats, only to return to slap her cheek with a stinging _crack_.

“Open your eyes, Darya. We need you awake for this.”

Judging it better to know her surroundings, she opens her eyes.

She is seated and restrained in the middle of a non-descript room. Machines whir and hum, but they are angled so she cannot see their displays. Looking down, there is an IV line running into her arm and she is still in her tac suit, though her weapons lie in a pile across the room. They even took those handy bracelets that Tony made for her. Hopefully, they got a nasty shock in the process.

Dread begins to pool in her stomach. Damn Steve Rogers, and while she’s at it, damn Natalia for disappearing. Oh, all the choices she made on her way here — accompanying Steve, fighting Anya, sending them away — made sense at the time, but she can’t see a way out of this.

She hopes Bucky will forgive her.

A mouthpiece is shoved into her mouth and she chokes. Before she can spit it out, white fire explodes through her veins, her very soul, eclipsing sense and reason until there is nothing but agony, pulsing and crackling as it pours through her, pushing against her skin from the inside out. Abruptly, it cuts off and there is nothing at all but blessed absence.

Slowly she becomes aware of noise around her, garbled and indistinct as if heard from a great distance or from underwater. It takes a moment for her brain to understand them as words, even longer to parse their meaning.

“Yes, the readings are most satisfactory. We can begin the conditioning on the next round. Increase the intensity by 20%, we don’t have time to spare on this one. We’ve wasted enough time transporting her here.”

“Yes, sir,” acknowledges the technician beside her as he adjusts a dial and flicks the switch.


	11. Headfirst

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which everyone gets moving. Eventually.
> 
> _I'm going to fight my way to happy ever after_   
>  _Win my chance to start another chapter_   
>  _Can't stop now, I don't even care if it hurts_   
>  _I'm diving in head first_

Steve strides onto the troop transport, casts his eyes around. All the hostages are accounted for, but several men are out cold and an unconscious Anya is trussed up like a turkey on the floor.

“Let’s get moving!” someone yells once he is inside, and he quickly takes a seat as the transport jolts forward.

“Where’s Da- the other woman?” he asks, realising who is missing.

“She sent us back, covered our retreat. Wouldn’t have made it back without her. Who was she, anyway?”

Steve pauses, reconsiders. “That was the Lynx,” he says, finally, wincing at the past tense as it leaves his lips. There is a murmur of acknowledgement, some solemn nods.

He knows better than to ask them to wait; he can hear sounds of pursuit from behind them, even over the engine. He just opens the door and jumps, landing on his shield and rolling to absorb the impact. There are cries of surprise from behind him, even more from their pursuers as he bursts into their midst.

He fights his way through to the room where the hostages were kept. One body on the floor catches his eye and he leans forward to retrieve a familiar knife. The floor is sticky with blood, but he is initially relieved to see Darcy does not lie among the broken dead. Unfortunately, on second glance, there’s no sign of her at all.

Oh, Bucky is going to _kill_ him.

* * *

Bucky paces the room. This was a mistake. He should have gone with them, UN be damned. How many of them would have heard of the Winter Solder, anyway? Darcy is more than his soulmate, she’s his anchor, something to tie the broken pieces that he’s been clawing back from the abyss. Without her, his mind spins, memories and nightmares tangled together.

Friday chimes and he halts mid-step. “Yes?”

“Excuse me, Sergeant Barnes, but you have an incoming call from Captain Rogers.”

His gut turns to ice and he claws at his shirt to reveal his soulmark, still a reassuring black. “What is it?”

“Buck, I’m sorry.”

“What have you done?” he growls.

“She was covering their retreat, and -”

“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?” he roars, causing Katya to poke her head out of her room, eyes wide.

“Not enough. They got her, Buck. We got Anya, but they got her.”

The ice spreads, caging his mind in crystal clarity. He is going to kill them all. Especially Steve.

* * *

Stark taps the display and it magnifies, showing a pulsing beacon somewhere in Europe. “According to her Widow’s bites, she’s on the move, headed west. From their speed and route, it seems they are travelling by road, which gives us some time. It’s a good thing Europe have tightened rules on cross-border private flights since that plane went down.”

“Can we tag local law enforcement to intercept?” Clint suggests, having reappeared at the Tower with Nat some hours before the furore started.

“We don’t know what vehicle they are using,” Stark reminds him.

“It also dooms those poor officers,” Katya says. “They have no idea what they’re dealing with.”

Friday chimes. “Sir, Captain Rogers has arrived with the detainee.”

“Great, direct them to the Hulk-cell.”

Bucky grits his teeth and heads to the elevator.

* * *

Steve taps the buttons Friday tells him, and the door to the Hulk containment module slides shut, obscuring Anya’s limp form from view. He removed the sedative patch from her neck before he left her, but can’t say how long it will take to work through her system. He turns around — straight into Bucky’s fist.

“This is all your fault!” Bucky yells, and Steve tries to explain but has to dodge an enraged Bucky and it’s soon clear Buck’s not listening and he does feel terribly guilty about it all so a part of him wants to just take his lumps…

Overall, it’s a bit of a relief when Katya lands on Bucky’s back and screams in his ear.

“ _Chort vozmi_ , what is _wrong_ with you?” she yells. “Do you think this is going to help get her back?”

Bucky stops so suddenly, Steve actually hits _himself_ trying to get out of the way of a fist that is no longer swinging. His friend slumps to the floor, head in his hands. “What am I going to do?” he asks, voice shaky, more to himself than to either of them there. “I can’t do this.”

Steve looks down at his friend, more vulnerable than he’s ever seen him since the rescue of the 107th. “We’ll get her back,” he promises, holding out his hand. “With you to the end of the line, pal.”

Bucky looks up, reluctant hope warring with anger. "We'd better get her back," he mutters, and takes the proffered hand.  

* * *

“Sure, whatever, we’ll keep an eye out. Just the one, get it?” Tony jabs a button, ending the video call, and looks over to where they stand by the elevator, outside of camera range. “How much of that did you catch?”

“That was Director Fury,” Steve says. “Why did he call?”

Tony fiddles with the interface in front of him. “Funny thing, that. Somehow, SHIELD has become aware that Stark Industries, or the Avengers, he wasn’t very clear, may be harbouring Russian fugitives. We’re supposed to release them into SHIELD custody should we become aware of their whereabouts.” Photos pop up on the screen — Darcy, Katya, Anya, and Bucky, though he is masked. “Someone on your little UN trip must have squealed.”

Steve shakes his head. “That wouldn’t explain the other two.”

Katya’s eyes narrow as she studies the screen. “Where did SHIELD get those photos, anyway? Those are the ones on our files — not sure about the _Soldat_ 's, you can barely make out his face in his one.”

“Your file? From the Red Room? Are you sure?” Clint sounds sceptical.

“It was many years ago that I saw them, before our escape,  but yes, I am sure.”

“Could those files have fallen into the hands of the Russian government?”

“Perhaps,” Katya says, looking unconvinced and shifting nervously.

“Fury seemed to imply his source was from within SHIELD.”

“Someone he trusted,” Natalia adds, a small crease between her brows. “He thought it was a waste of his time but did it anyway.”

“Are you saying someone Nick Fury trusts has ties to the Red Room?” Steve looks disturbed and the room erupts in denials and suppositions.

“Can we get back to Darcy?” Bucky yells, drawing everyone’s attention. “Stark, you got her position?”

“Yeah, she’s still on the move. They’ve passed several private and commercial airports so we can assume their final destination is somewhere in Europe.”

“Then let’s go,” Steve says, clapping one hand on Bucky’s shoulder. He looks around, notices someone missing. “Where’s Katya?”

Just then, the elevator chimes, swooshing open to reveal the woman in question, side by side with a familiar stranger. “I made a call,” Katya says as they saunter out.

“Just for the record, I’m here for Darya,” the other woman adds, hair swept into a tight bun. “Anyone else get themselves in trouble, they’re on their own.”

Clint squints at her. “Yulia?”

“You expecting someone else, Katniss?”

“I like her,” Tony announces to the room at large, before remembering who she was and what she had done.

“Are we going now?” Bucky demands. Almost guiltily, everyone starts moving. It takes long than he’d like to get Yulia outfitted, but he doesn’t deny the extra help is welcome. There is a brief argument over the value of interrogating Anya, but the point is rendered moot when Friday reports that she is still comatose, the sedative working better than expected.

* * *

Several hours into the flight, most conversation has lapsed into a tense silence. Yulia and Katya murmur together in Russian as Steve watches Bucky methodically dismantle, check, and reassemble every weapon on his person. He is so tightly wound, he barely seems to be breathing.

“I think she’s stopped moving,” Tony notes, studying a tablet .

Bucky becomes even more still for the slightest second, snaps the cartridge back into place. “Where is she?”

“Looks like an abandoned fortress in Sokhovia, just outside of Novi Grad. We’re less than an hour away.” He taps away at his tablet. “I’m just repositioning a satellite for up to date- ah.”

Yulia leans closer, studying the clearly visible gun turrets and patrols. “That does not look abandoned.”

Tony’s tablet lets out a chime. He takes one look and swears quietly. “That’s not good.”

In two short strides, Bucky has him pushed against the side of the jet, metal arm against armour-clad throat. “What’s not good?”

“The bracelets are no longer registering a pulse.”

Bucky stumbles back, face greying, one hand coming to rest over his mark.

“This doesn’t change anything,” Steve says firmly. “They could be malfunctioning or taken off. We go in, we get Darcy, and we shut them down.”

“I’m cloaking the jet now,” Clint reports from the cockpit. “Have I mentioned how much I hate being designated pilot?”

“We couldn’t have borrowed a SHIELD pilot for this,” Steve reminds him. “Not when we’re technically invading another country on nothing more than a couple of trackers. Everyone know what they’re doing?”

Nods from around the jet. There’s a whirring as the ramp opens behind him, revealing an empty courtyard. Yulia slips her earpiece in, cracks her knuckles. “It’s showtime, folks.”

Natalia, Katya, and Yulia head for the walls, to disable the turrets. Bucky takes the tablet off Stark and heads into the complex proper, Steve and his shield two steps ahead. Stark puts up his visor and scans the complex for power sources. Today, he gets to blow stuff up, and that almost makes up for the best coffee-maker in the Tower being a Russian assassin. Almost.

“Who’s ready for fireworks?” he asks, as his targeting systems come online.

“Fireworks?” he hears Yulia ask. “Please tell me he has actual fireworks.”

“Yulechka, what part of ‘sneak’ do you not understand?” Katya hisses.

“Just do it, Stark,” Nat says, so he does.

* * *

The room shudders and the lights go out. Unable to move, she lies there in the dark, gathering her frazzled thoughts. Her entire body aches with remembered pain and feels about as strong as an overcooked noodle.

“What is going on?” someone demands.

“The generator has failed,” comes the reply. “The backup generators will be on any moment now. Continue when they do.”

The technician mutters under his breath until the lights return, dimmer than before. “Finally,” he says.

She spits out the mouth guard, tilts her head towards him. “Stop. Please.” It comes out as a garbled mess of sound, but it gets his attention.

His glance flickers over to her, shifts to exasperation when he notices the mouth guard. He picks it up, holds it to her mouth. When she clamps her lips together, he pinches her nose shut.

 _It might be quite nice to pass out,_ she thinks, as black spots swim in her vision.

All of a sudden, the technician collapses onto her and her airway is clear. She takes a gasping breath as footsteps approach at a run, and then the weight of the technician is pushed aside and another man stands beside her, trepidation on his face.

“Do you know me?” he asks, and she wants to answer in the positive but there’s a space where his name should be and her tongue lies thick and heavy in her mouth. “Darcy, please…” His voice breaks.

 _Darcy_. That’s her name. Like jigsaw pieces slotting together, information falls into place. _That_ _’s_ Bucky and over _there_ is Steve, gaze flicking between them and the door. “Bucky,” she says, testing the word out, and it sounds like a revelation.

His eyes widen. “If I undo these restraints, are you going to attack me?”

She thinks about it. ‘I don’t think so,” she replies, forming the sentence carefully.

“You would say that,” he mutters, but releases her anyway.

“My things,” she says, gesturing weakly in the direction of her confiscated weapons. With a sigh, Bucky fetches them for her, helps her slot them back into place. By the time the last bracelet is fastened, she feels a lot more steady.

He helps her stand, one arm looped around her waist, and they follow Steve into the hallway. She has to stop every few seconds to catch her breath, but he makes no move to carry her, for which she is grateful. She was a prisoner, not a victim.

“The jet is this way,” Steve says, peering around an upcoming corner. “Stay behind me.”

"Let him absorb any gunfire," Bucky tells her. 

"I heard that," Steve yells.

* * *

They are nearly at the exit when a scream echoes down the corridor. It is obviously female and Darcy wonders who exactly came on this rescue mission. Steve looks over at them, torn.

“We can take it from here,” Bucky insists. “Go find out who that was.”

He gives them a sharp nod and doubles back, disappearing up one of the side passages they had passed earlier.

“I thought he’d never leave.”

They both turn and Darcy recognises the man who had overseen her time in the chair. She snarls at him; Bucky already has a gun out, but the man doesn’t seem worried. There is an odd humming that makes her hair stand on end and Bucky’s shot goes wild. She can feel his surprise — he never misses — but as she watches, the gun moves on its own, pulling itself out of his grasp. For a moment, Bucky resists. When he lets it go, it flies from his hand to stick to the wall beside them.

“Electromagnet,” the man clarifies, smirking at their confusion. “Handy, isn’t it? Now, if I turn it up…”

With a _clunk_ , Bucky’s arm is fastened against the wall. With her primary support gone, Darcy stumbles, landing on the floor in an ungainly heap. Bucky reaches out to her and she grabs his hand, anchoring him as he tugs at his trapped arm.

“Don’t bother,” the man says, shaking his head. “You’re not moving until I turn it off. Don’t worry, I won’t keep you long.” He opens a red folder, leafs through the pages. “This really makes things a lot easier. We won’t have to wipe nearly as often, not with a matched set. Soulmates make such excellent leverage.”

He laughs at their surprised expressions. “You thought we wouldn’t work it out? Highly compliant assets don’t just go missing. Of course, we couldn’t be certain until Darya came home with a readable mark.”

“Came home?” Darcy spits. “You’re dreaming. And in case you hadn’t noticed, we’re hardly on our own here.”

“Yes, yes, you brought the whole gang. No matter. None of them are here and you can hardly stand unassisted. We’ll wipe the useful ones and kill the rest. Now, _zhelaniye. Rzhavyy. Semnadtsat_ ’-  ”

Bucky groans, shaking his head. “Stop…”

Gritting her teeth, Darcy pulls herself up with her grip on Bucky’s free hand. She can feel him shaking as the man drones on; the seemingly innocuous words are causing him pain. She takes an even, measured breath; one arm locks around Bucky's waist. She will only have one shot at this…

The man’s recitation chokes off with a gurgle and her knife in his throat as he topples backwards. Bucky blinks, swings his gaze to her. “The magnet?”

“Ceramic knife, remember?”

With a pat on his cheek, she lets him go and staggers down the corridor to the body. It’s a simple enough matter to find the remote and disable the magnet, less simple to stumble back to where Bucky sits against the wall, still shaking. His gaze darkens as they land on the red folder she carries.

“I’m not leaving this for anyone to find,” she tells him. “Come on.”

Leaning on each other, they make their way outside.


	12. Brighter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The end. Or the beginning. Something like that.
> 
> _Got a long way to go but I know I believe_  
>  _That the light at the end is brighter than it used to be_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, I've fiddled with the twins' background here.

Their trip outside seems to take forever. They peer around every corner and edge past the defenders that Bucky and Steve downed on their way in. None seem to be breathing, but Darcy can't bring herself to care. Two intersections down the hall, they meet Steve and a singed and bloody Katya. "It's not as bad as it looks," she insists, at Darcy's startled exclamation. "You know how head wounds bleed."

"You still got shot in the side," Steve reminds her, and she glares at him.

"They didn't need to know that. It only grazed me. You're the one who took a chair to the head..."

Darcy looks over her sister as she speaks and concludes she is not in danger of immediate collapse. Tugging on Bucky to get him moving again, they continue down the corridor. After a moment, the other two follow them, still arguing.

They arrive at the jet at the same time as Natalia, who gestures for them to board ahead of her.

Yulia is on guard at the bottom of the ramp. Her face lights up when she sees Darcy and she sheathes her knife, following them in.  "You look terrible," she tells them cheerfully. "Let's get going so we can blow up this popsicle stand."

Something about the wording doesn't sound right to Darcy, but she focuses on putting one foot ahead of the other up the ramp. If she gives into relief now, she'd collapse on the floor.

"Who's that?"

She feels Bucky tense beside her as he spots the stranger with white-blond hair unconscious in the quinjet and the brunette sitting at his side.

"My name is Wanda," she says, her voice betraying her as a local, "and this is my brother Pietro."

"HYDRA had them captive and was experimenting on them," Clint explains from the cockpit.

Steve, dirty but looking otherwise unharmed as he follows Katya up the ramp, stiffens. "HYDRA?"

"You will be the new fist of HYDRA," Bucky mutters. Everyone stares at him and his shoulders hunch. "I- someone said that to me, once."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Lemme get this straight," Darcy says, drawing everyone's attention. Bucky's left fist is clenched tight and he is barely breathing under their scrutiny; as people look away from him, some of the tension leaves his frame. "A bunch of Nazis have been experimenting on people in the middle of Europe? What year is this, anyway?"

"I've been wondering the same thing," Steve admits, brows drawn together. "Also, why are they on our jet?"

A grin threatens to split Yulia's face, much like when the first time they were allowed to train with grenade launchers. "Katniss adopted them. Offered to take them to the secret farm he thought I couldn't hear him talking about."

"What!?"

"Aw, Tasha, I couldn't just leave them there. Their entire family's dead and they're not even 18!"

Natalia looks less than impressed and stalks into the cockpit. The door slides shut behind her, closing them off from the main cabin. In the ensuing silence, Bucky eyes the strangers distrustfully and guides Darcy to a seat opposite, where they can keep an eye on them. Katya seats herself on the other side of Darcy, hugs her sister tightly.

"I was so worried," she mumbles, then hisses in pain as Darcy tries to return the embrace. "Not there, 'kay? I'm a little sore."

Steve coughs, a noise that sounds suspiciously like "shot", and she turns to look at him, one arm still around Darcy. "That's a terrible cough you got there, Cap. If it gets much worse, you could _die_."

Yulia snorts from where she is stretched out, a seat away from Wanda. "I think that's a warning, Rocky. Katenka was always good at making things look like an accident."

"Funny how that works out: when one actually think about things before rushing in," Katya muses.

Darcy nudges her lightly, no energy left to make the warning any harder. "Be nice. I think that was a compliment."

"Can we get back to the Nazi experiments?" Steve asks, his voice strained, and Bucky shifts uncomfortably in his seat. "I-"

Something beeps and Yulia makes a show of checking the time. She hits the control panel next to her and the cockpit door slides open.

"What?" Clint exclaims, sounding slightly breathless.

"Get Stark back here, it's time to go," Yulia tells him.

"What's the hurry?"

Yulia smiles sweetly. "I rigged the backup generators to explode fifteen minutes after Darya got back. They're right in the centre, should bring the entire castle down." She checks the time again. “We've got five minutes.”

"You what?" Steve bursts out. "There might be people in there."

"We cleared the containment rooms and only found the twins. Wanda confirmed that the people in the castle all wanted to be there. Apart from us, of course. You saw what they were doing, Captain. Do you really think the world would be better off if you saved them?"

Steve's jaw works for a few seconds, but he says nothing, and Yulia smiles in triumph.

"I'm getting us off the ground," Clint says, hitting switches and buttons across the dashboard in front of him. "Stark says he'll meet us in the air." The jet shudders as it goes airborne, the still-open ramp giving Darcy a view of the castle she missed on the way in.

Their trajectory puts them at the perfect angle to see the walls bulge slightly, then crumble inwards. The shockwave hits seconds before the sound of the explosion itself, shaking the jet slightly.

The view is blocked as Iron Man lands on the ramp. “Thanks for the heads-up,” he scowls when the face plate opens. “I barely made it out in time.”

“You're welcome,” Yulia replies, ignoring the sarcasm. “I do try and avoid collateral damage where I can.”

Darcy winces as Tony's face shuts down at the reminder of his parents. A tic starts underneath his right eye - then he shakes his head and goes to sit on the other side of the cabin. “Wake me up when we're back at the Tower,” he orders the world at large, and then to all appearances, falls asleep.

“What the hell,” Steve says conversationally, as the ramp closes.

Too tired to wonder, Darcy shrugs one shoulder and rests her head on Bucky’s arm. Confusing and maddening Tony might be, but he does have some good ideas from time to time, and a nap seems like one of them.

Bucky doesn't relax, even when Darcy's breathing goes slow and even. Barton might have taken a shine to the teenagers now conversing in soft Sokhovian, but his judgement is suspect, as evidenced by the way he has warmed up to Bucky himself. He only just got Darcy back; he's not risking her safety with strangers around. At some level, she's still his mission.

Yulia eyes him from across the cabin. “She must really trust you,” she says, gaze flicking to beside him. “I still can't fall asleep around strangers.”

“Me too,” Katya admits.

None of them let their focus waver too long from Barton's strays. The flight home is concluded in exhausted silence.

* * *

Barton sets the jet down gently and powers off the engines. Natalia shakes Stark awake; Bucky lifts Darcy into his arms as he stands and she barely stirs. “Let me take her,” Steve offers. “You're barely standing yourself.”

Teeth gritted, Bucky shakes his head and stumbles down the ramp. He makes his way back to their apartment by memory, surprised how familiar it feels already. Katya gets the door and heads to her own room; Yulia makes a beeline to the bathroom, already loosening her tac vest. Bucky gets Darcy to the bed, closing the door behind them and stripping off her boots. He does a full security perimeter check of the room before collapsing next to Darcy and giving in to unconsciousness.

He snaps awake when someone opens the door but stays still as they cross the room to Darcy’s side. It hasn’t been enough rest by far, but he’s functioned on less and his gun is inches from his hand if they prove a threat.

“Dashenka, wake up.”

Darcy’s eyes flicker at Yulia’s words. “Go away,” she mutters, and it’s the most beautiful thing Bucky’s ever heard.

“Sorry, sestra, but Anya’s awake and I thought it would be good to talk to her together before I go.”

“Where are you going?”

“Home, of course. We got you home and I need to get back to mine, but I need to know what Anya’s doing first.”

Darcy rubs a hand over her face and stretches, giving Bucky the chance to feign waking up. “What’s up?”

“We’re going to see Anya. Let me take a quick shower, yeah?”

Scrubbed clean and feeling marginally more awake, they head down to Anya’s cell. She’s sitting in the middle, an empty tray from the cafeteria in front of her. Darcy squints at it.

“Did you give her cutlery?”

“Yeah, but only the plastic stuff.”

She sighs, hears it echoed beside her. “It’s not on the tray now, which means she’s probably going to use it to kill whoever steps through the door.”

“Good thing we waited for you lot, then.”

Loosening Bucky’s grip from around her waist, Darcy steps forward. “Yulechka, you better go first. Katya’s looking wobbly and I’m not feeling too good either.”

“How do you know she’s past whatever they did to her?”

“She’s stealing cutlery. If she remembers enough to do that, she will remember us.”

The door hisses open and the three of them walk through, steps slow and deliberate. Anya’s head snaps up at their approach and her eyes go wide.

“Do you know us?” Yulia asks as they fan out to flank her, the door sliding shut behind them.

Her throat works as she swallows, then she gives one short, jerky nod.

“If you call us your missions, I’m personally going to tase you,” Darcy tells her, finger settling on the trigger.

“No, no, I know you, I - what happened?”

“We were hoping you could tell us.”

“I was stupid. Got overconfident, thought they’d stopped looking. There was a fire - I got out, I think, but it all gets a little fuzzy. There was a chair, and it hurt… the next time my head was clear, I was here.”

They ask a few more questions, but there isn’t much more she can add. After much discussion, all conducted in heated whispers outside the cell, she is allowed the use of another of the rooms on Darcy’s floor, with even more stringent restrictions on her movement. Given the surplus of furniture and electronics there, she could probably get out if she wanted to, but she doesn’t seem to know about FRIDAY and the AI has promised to keep a particular ‘eye’ on her.

Several hours into the catch-up, which has been moved to the shared apartment, Yulia stands.

“It has been lovely to see you, Anya, given the circumstances, but I need to go.”

“What’s the hurry?”

A soft smile. “I have a dance recital to get to. One performer, in particular, would be upset should I be late.”

“You have a daughter?” Darcy exclaims.

“Can we meet her?” Katya pleads.

Yulia shakes her head. “She’s getting involved in all of this over my dead body.”

“That’s not the most promising of wordings,” Anya notes, forehead creasing. “I’m pretty sure I’ve seen that movie. It doesn’t end well for your character.”

A pause as they all consider this. “Maybe when she’s older, then,” Yulia allows. “For now, she gets to be a child.”

Four women who never got that chance share a look in perfect agreement.

* * *

“Why’d you let her go?” Steve asks, as they once again watch Yulia walk out of the Tower.

“It wasn’t her fault. Someone else ordered that hit and used her to carry it out. I’m going to find out who that was and burn their world down.”

“Tony, it was twenty years ago.”

“Good thing these files I lifted from that base she blew up go back decades. Hey, HYDRA is supposed to be extinct, right? I spent 7th Grade History flirting with Mallory Weissman, but I’m pretty sure I remember that.”

“I- I was told they were destroyed after World War 2, that Peggy and SHIELD dismantled the whole organisation. Why?”

“Not only does your freezer-buddy there remember them and Barton’s strays name-dropped them back in the quinjet - I watched the recording - but,” Tony spun his tablet to face Steve. “I have here a list of the current members of the HYDRA High Council and I recognise half these names.”

Romanoff takes the tablet from him and swears, loudly and at length. “These are senators, politicians, philanthropists, and-”

“What?”

She jabs a finger at one name on the list. “Alexander Pierce. He’s practically Fury’s best friend.”

“I know him,” Bucky says, peering at the attached picture. “He was there when I woke up, the last time. He’s the one who sent me after Darcy.”

“I don’t believe it,” Tony proclaims. “The evil part I can accept, but I don’t think Captain Eyepatch has any friends.”

“Whatever their relationship, he’s part of the World Security Council. He has the ear of world leaders, even those that aren’t on this list.” She shoves the tablet back at Stark. “Get more details, Stark. We need to be sure.”

* * *

It takes several weeks, long enough that Darcy has recovered enough to help Jane in the lab, before Tony calls them all back to the conference room. At his insistence, Clint and Natasha have returned from wherever they left the twins to join the meeting.

“What took so long?” Katya asks, as soon as everyone is seated.

“You haven’t seen the size of this info dump, so I’m going to ignore that and all other questions until I’m done.” The main display flickers to life - a world map, covered in red dots. “Those are current HYDRA bases and these-” A list of names and faces starts scrolling down the side- “Are HYDRA recruits, current as to a few weeks ago. It’s a good thing Von Struker was so meticulous about his notes.”

“Stop,” Steve said, holding up a hand. “I recognised someone.”

His face paled as he read down the list. “These- these are all SHIELD agents. I’ve worked with a lot of them. Hell, it’s the entire STRIKE team!”

Clint and Nat both look shell-shocked, eyes glued to the screen. “Are you sure?” he demands hoarsely, as she shakes her head in denial.

“Wouldn’t have told you if I wasn’t,” Stark assures them. “But Fury’s not on that list, you’ll be pleased to know.”

The SHIELD agents look less than pleased, but there is a loosening of tension in their shoulders that speaks of relief.

“What are we going to do?” Steve asks, and his words are greeted by silence.

Until Darcy speaks up. “We kill them, of course.”

“You _what_?”

“You heard me, Steve. You spent a good few years killing Nazis. Now there are more of them to kill.”

“Darcy, I didn’t enlist to kill Nazis. I enlisted to stop them from taking over the world.”

“How about this?” Katya breaks in. “We look into these members of HYDRA. Once we find evidence that they are up to no good, and I am sure we will given the twins and what they tell me, _then_ we kill them.”

“Spoken like a true lawyer,” Clint mutters. “And when have you talked to the twins?”

Katya smiles serenely. ““Thank you, and we Skype. I like to know the people around me and it’s pretty lonely for them out in the middle of nowhere.”

“No, stop,” Steve insists. “We can’t just kill them. If we act as judge, jury, and executioner, we’re no better than they are.”

“Who are we going to tell? Half the Supreme Court is on that list, and a fair number of their potential successors.” Darcy looks around defensively. “What? I studied political science, I like to know these things.”

Katya purses her lips. “We’ll split the load. The Avengers can take out the HYDRA bases and whatever they find there. I’ll research each of these people and their involvement with HYDRA. If we decide they’ve crossed the line, Darcy, Anya, and Bucky will take them out.”

“How come we’re on the kill team?”

“You did suggest killing them in the first place, Dashenka.”

“True.”

“How come we’re _not_?”

“You’ve worked with some of those people, Barton. We can’t ask you to kill them.”

“Is anyone else concerned that we’re sitting here discussing mass murder?” Steve looks around the room. “I notice you didn’t volunteer yourself for the dirty work.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “I’m happy to do my share, but my skill at research and building a case almost certainly surpasses most of you.”

“How about a compromise?” Darcy suggests. “We turn this list and the accompanying evidence in to Fury, being sure to point out those he may otherwise trust. Anyone who is likely to escape court due to money or status, we deal with. Quietly.”

“That sounds better,” Steve agrees slowly, “but I still can’t sit at a table and discuss killing like this.” He stands. “Which is why I am going to lunch. Anyone care to join me?”

Barton gets to his feet, shaking his head. “Yeah, I’ll go. That’s not who I am anymore. Tasha?”

After a long moment, Natalia stands too. “If you need a hand, I’m in, but Clint’s right. It’s not who I want to be, not anymore.”

Anya opens her mouth to protest, perhaps to comment on the Black Widow’s choice of words, but a well-placed jab to her ribs has her jaw snapping shut.

Stark stands as well. “You crazy kids have fun, but espionage has never been my thing. Don’t get caught.” His words are met with scoffing as he follows his teammates out, the door closing behind them.

Darcy looks over at her soulmate. “Bucky? You don’t have to do this.”

He shakes his head. “Steve’s always been soft in that way. I ‘member watching his back because the punk was too honourable to think about someone stabbing him there. If you needed something done, something dirty, I did it. Kept his hands clean.” He looks down at those hands, one now metal. “Guess not much has changed there. What about you, doll? You left this life behind you.”

“I left being a weapon behind me. Wanted a life with choice, where going out didn’t have to mean killing people, not if I didn’t want to and mostly I don’t. I don’t have a problem killing people who need to be killed and I reckon Nazis just about fit the bill.”

Her sisters nod in agreement and they reshuffle their chairs to better see the screen as Katya takes over its control.

“First up, we have a senator…”

* * *

SHIELD quietly cleans house as the Avengers salt and burn HYDRA bases across the globe. Clint is ecstatic to be relieved of pilot duty; the new pilot is happy to stay in the quinjet and trade quips and kisses with the brunette in charge of communications. For their lack of visibility, they avoid media nicknames, but internally they are termed ‘Summer’ and ‘Winter’ and more than one group have been surprised at how well the Avengers’ exit strategy is protected.

Stark Industries beefs up their internal legal team; one of their new hires is still studying towards the bar but as she is their liaison with the Avengers and the assistant to Pepper Potts, no-one questions her inclusion too loudly. The Avengers have a few cadet members now and getting them legal residence in the States takes up more of the legal team’s time than they would care to admit.

A debilitating illness sweeps through the upper echelons of the US Government, tragically killing a number of well-respected senators and judges. It must be their age and associated frailty, the pundits agree, ignoring the illness’ younger victims. It even spreads across borders through an international summit - for a while, there are fears of a worldwide pandemic. There are a number of car accidents, too, and new safety regulations are pushed through too late to save several promising young politicians. There are also a spate of freak accidents and heart attacks that strike prominent businesspeople, but that’s life, isn’t it?

Somewhere in the suburbs, a mother brushes her daughter’s hair and tells her about the aunts she will someday meet, mostly. One is sensible and one is clever and one is resourceful and one loved to dance, just like her. There’s a spare cellphone inside a bundle of cash at the back of the wardrobe, under the box of adoption papers and a marriage certificate, but with every tragic headline, it becomes less and less relevant. The mother hopes her sisters are as happy as she is.

* * *

The alarm on Darcy’s phone chimes and she looks up. “Okay, Jane, it’s ten o’clock and you haven’t had a breakthrough. Time to leave the lab, or I’m going to drug your coffee.”

“Damn you and your super spy skills,” Jane complains, making a face.

“I have no problem with using them on you, so git.”

The other lab workers around them exchange indulgent glances and laugh along. It was nice to see Dr Foster developing a sense of humour, because cheerful, gregarious Darcy is the opposite of any spy they can imagine, and the Black Widow has been known to drop by the lab, along with that mysterious new Avenger, the Lynx.

Darcy hustles everyone out, shooing the last along before setting several booby traps and turning off the lights. Bucky slips up behind her and places his hands over her eyes; she spins with a shriek, clutching at his shirt.

“Warn a girl, would you? I could’ve killed you.”

“I’m wearing one of Stark’s new stab-resistant shirts.”

She waves his objection away. “Doesn’t protect your neck. You’re lucky I love you.”

He doesn’t dispute the last because it’s true. “How was your day?”

“Tolerable. How was the meeting with Dr Garner?”

“It was okay. Told him about talking more with Steve and he was pretty happy with that. He’s a good guy.”

“That he is. We still on for movie night?”

“Damn straight. You’ve been insulting me in a French accent since you saw the movie schedule Katie drew up.”

“Well, you have to know these things when you're a king, you know.”

“I really hope that makes sense at the end of the night.”

“Oh it will. Probably.”

Hand in hand, they leave the lab.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So what did you think? Good ending, terrible ending, something I missed? I certainly didn't expect this fic to get as big as it did - it's 22k bigger than the previous instalment!  
> Anyway, thank you, everyone, for reading and commenting, and your patience in waiting for this chapter. In my defence, I was on holiday and it's not easy to write longfic on a phone.  
> As always, I can be found on [Tumblr](http://backwardsandinhighheels.tumblr.com/) and my askbox is always open.


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